CHAPTER 21: MASQUERADE

The Gilbert House

After the doctors confirmed that Jenna was going to make a full recovery, Natalie, Elena, Jeremy and Matt were given the responsibility to get the strawberry blonde.

"Easy." Matt said, softly as he helped her, before looking over at Jeremy. "Grab the door Jer."

Jeremy opened the door for his aunt carefully as Matt and Elena basically carried her through.

"Hey, stop fussing, I'm fine." Jenna complained.

Elena frowned disapprovingly at her. "The doctors said that you have to take it easy."

"Yeah, I mean, the last thing we want is for you to rip your stitches hemorrhage and die." Natalie shrugged as she made the couch ready for Jenna.

"Yeah, the only thing I'm gonna die from is embarrassment." Jenna sighed. "I walked into a knife. How does somebody do that?"

Natalie, Elena and Jeremy exchanged looks, knowing that keeping the supernatural part of the reason for her wound away from Jenna. "It was a freak accident." Elena lied.

"It happens." Jeremy supported his sister's statement.

"Yeah, I mean I've done it like twenty times at the Grill." Matt tried to to cheer her up.

And it worked, as Jenna started to laugh, only to wince in pain and yelp at the pain that came along.

"Okay, I'm being nice." Matt admitted.

"Careful." Jeremy said as Elena and Matt were carrying Jenna onto the couch.

"Easy, easy." Natalie agreed.

And then Jenna was lying comfortably on the couch. As Natalie begged the others to pick up some food, Matt was holding up a bag of food.

"What should I do with this?" he asked Elena.

"I got it." she smiled at her ex-boyfriend before taking the bag and heading out to the Kitchen.

And Natalie followed, of course.

"What are we going to do?" Natalie asked her sister as the two looked down in the bag.

"Make lunch." Elena responded simply.

Natalie narrowed her eyes at the other brunette annoyedly. "You know what I'm talking about."

"We're not gonna do anything, Natalie." Elena responded as she started preparing the lunch.

Natalie slapped Elena's arm, glaring at her heatedly. "As if it wasn't enough that she kidnapped and tortured me, she also hurt Jenna. We can't let her get away with this."

Elena took a deep breath as she heard Natalie's words, but decided to continue her approach. "Yes we can. If it keeps us safe then we can."

"And if she tries anything else?" Natalie raised en eyebrow at her.

"She won't. Katherine hurt you andJenna because I didn't do what she said. I'm not doing it now, me and Stefan are over. She wins, the end." Elena explained sternly.

Natalie swallowed the lump in her throat, pushing down the feeling she had that wanted her to tell Elena that breaking up with Stefan was right. But she was a good person, and she wasn't about to do that to her own sister. "You are being naïve and you know it."

▹▹▹

The Salvatore Boarding House

Whilst Alaric had gotten a text telling him to go to the Gilbert house and keep Elena occupied, Natalie, Bonnie and Jeremy had gotten texts from Stefan, Damon and Caroline asking them to come over.

And Stefan told Natalie about something they both had great pleasure from hearing. They were going to kill Katherine.

And everyone had their own job. Jeremy as used as some part of leading Katherine away, Bonnie was used for spelling a room, Stefan and Damon were used to kill the vampire themselves, Caroline was going to be around to make sure nothing would go wrong, and Natalie was going to do just about everything else. Which included teaching "Vampire Slaying 101."

As Natalie stood over a table of weapons, everyone else was staring at her. As she looked over at Jeremy who was holding up a crossbow. "Don't touch that unless you want to get killed. That's one of mine." at those words Jeremy put it down sheepishly. Then Natalie picked up another weapon. "This works with compressed air," Natalie explained, before pointing to the trigger. "The trigger mechanism is up here. I have two of these in a different size." she then picked up a smaller model of the weapon. "For you I recommend this. It fits nicely under the jacket sleeve. You use the trigger when you're ready."

And then Natalie punched the air, as if it was a vampire, and a stake shot out, ready to kill the vampire.

Stefan and Damon exchanged looks.

"Hey, you were the ones who wanted me to show you how to kill a vampire." Natalie shrugged.

▹▹▹

"Alright, if anybody wants to back out, I'll understand." Stefan told the supernatural involved teenagers.

"Yeah. Cold feet speak now. I don't want this going wrong if someone chicken's out," Damon spoke up, his eyes wandering to the only blonde in the room. "Caroline."

"I won't," Caroline responded before seeing all the doubting looks. "Look, she killed me. Fair's fair. As long as there's no werewolf running around."

"Oh, I took care of Mason." Damon smirked, making just about everyone in the room roll their eyes.

"As long as Tyler doesn't kill anyone, he won't turn." Jeremy reassured her.

"Natalie?" Damon raised an eyebrow at her questioningly.

"Are you seriously asking me that? She tortured me! Bitch is going down." Natalie smirked picking up on of the weapons from the table.

Nut there was still one person being doubted. "Bonnie? Are you with us?" Stefan asked.

There was a long moment of hesitation. "But no one gets hurt."

"Except Katherine," Damon smirked happily. "Tonight Katherine gets a stake through her heart."

▹▹▹

The Lockwood Mansion

The masquerade party had already started when Natalie showed up. Late wasn't really her favorite term, she prefered to add fashionably in front of it.

The first thing she did was look out for anyone she knew. She didn't really know that someone spotted her first, and he was shocked by how beautiful she looked in her kneelength black dress with a matching mask, her hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. In case you didn't guess, that person was Stefan.

But he was quickly interuppted by the appearance of Katherine, who threatened him to dance with her.

And, Damon, who was annoyed with the turn of events, decided to walk up to the young huntress. "You want to dance or something?"

"You do realize that I'm Natalie, right? You turned my mother into a vampire, you killed me. Ring a bell?" she retorted.

"How else are we supposed to keep an eye on Stefan and Katherine if we're not close to them?" Damon asked rhetorically, before holding out his hand for her to take. She rolled her eyes and took it.

And they danced, not seeing Stefan's burning gaze on them.

"I never really apologized for turning Isobel." Damon commented.

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Well, I am sorry." Damon sighed.

"You seem to be saying that a lot lately." Natalie said, swaying to the music with Damon.

Until Damon heard a sickening crack.

Katherine killed someone.

▹▹▹

Damon and Stefan went to take care of the body, whilst Natalie was waiting for it to be her turn in the Salvatore brothers' plan.

Natalie was scared, to be honest. She acted fearless, she acted strong, something to keep her enemies from seeing weakness. Weakness that only a small number of people had seen. Namely Alaric, Stefan, Caroline and Elena. So, with her mask off and her dress still on she walked through the crowd of people as her phone rang, signaling a text.

From Jeremy:
Your turn

Natalie quickly sneaked away from the crowd and into an empty room, and before she knew it, she was held against the wall by a carbon copy of Elena.

"What are Stefan and Damon up to?" Katherine spat, holding her against the wall by her throat.

Natalie frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I've got Jeremy Gilbert luring me out to the lake. What's going on?" Katherine said angrily, squeezing her hand a little tighter around Natalie's neck.

"I don't know!" Natalie lied, struggling against Katherine's grip.

"Don't lie to me, Natalie. They're up to something, what is it?" Katherine glared, full-on choking Natalie. But she got no response, so Katherine tightened her grip just a little bit more.

"Wait, no, no, no! Okay. They're trying to kill you." Natalie groaned out.

Katherine smirked in victory as she let Natalie down from where she held her up against the wall. "I figured as much. Where is the moonstone?"

"Bonnie has it." Natalie answered rubbing her throat.

"And where is Bonnie right now?" Katherine asked, a threatening look in her eyes, falsely scaring Nataie senseless.

"Upstairs," she lied, but Katherine didn't even notice.

▹▹▹

"Why are you dragging me into this? I don't want any part of it." Natalie fake sobbed as Katherine dragged her with her.

Katherine was growing more and more annoyed with the brunette that she once 'mistaked' for being strong. "Shut up!"

The two stopped in front of a door. "Which room is it?" Katherine asked angrily.

"It's that one." Natalie nodded at the room in front of them.

Katherine was quick to believe her and walked inside. Only to find it witchless. "Where is she?" She turned around to look at Natalie again, who was no longer fakingly being scared and sad, a smirk now gracing her face.

"How, I really did it. I fooled the great Katherine Pierce. I did it." Natalie nodded in approval of herself.

Katherine quickly started glaring at her and sped towards her. Only to realize that she wasn't able to get Natalie. There was an invisible barrier at the doorframe, one that Bonnie spelled.

And then there was a new figure inside the room, and Stefan Salvatore walked out, holding a stake. "Hello, Katherine."

"Goodbye, Katherine." Natalie smirked.

▹▹▹

When Natalie was outside again, she was pretty happy with her performance, and Natalie being Natalie, she thought she might even deserve an Oscar for it. But her happiness soon diminished as she heard her sister whimpering and sobbing. "Bonnie, it hurts."

"I can't break the spell, Elena. I'm sorry but I can try to take some of the pain away. Okay? Okay?" Bonnie said as Natalie located them and walked over just as Bonnie started chanting. "Ascinda, mulaf, hinto, ascinda... "

"What's going on?" Natalie asked, her eyes widening as she saw Elena whimpering on the ground blood penetrating through the fabric of her shirt.

"I- I'm linked to Katherine." Elena sobbed.

Then Jeremy came running, clearly having talked to the Salvatores. "Are you okay?"

"Are they?" Elena asked.

"They're stuck in there with her." Jeremy answered before looking at Bonnie. "You were right; Katherine had a witch link Elena to her."

"The girl I saw, the one inside!" Bonnie exclaimed before looking at the three relatives. "Stay with her, keep pressure on her shoulder!"

So, Natalie kept pressure on her shoulder as Jeremy kept trying to persuade her to use the Gilbert ring.

"Elena listen to me: you need this more than I do." Jeremy said.

"No Jeremy. What I need is for you to be safe."

▹▹▹

The witch Bonnie was talking about lifted the spell and Elena was completely fine, she left the Lockwood mansion and everything was good. Well, except for Stefan, who just heard Elena say that she couldn't be with him anymore.

So, Stefan was heart broken.

And when Stefan was heart broken he wanted to find someone who could make him feel better, and who was better to do that then Natalie Saltzman?

"You guys are going to find your way back to one another." Natalie said, ignoring the feeling grumbling inside of her when she said those words.

"I'm not so sure about it this time. With Katherine and that Elena wants to keep everyone safe, it just... I need something to keep my mind off of it." Stefan shrugged.

Natalie's eyes quickly lit up as if she had an idea. "Dance with me."

"Now?" Stefan asked. "But there's no music."

Natalie smirked and fished out her phone, turning on some music. "You only  danced with Katherine tonight, and I think you deserve a second one with a friend, even though I can't dance, so do lead please."

Stefan nodded, smiling softly, putting his hands on her waist they started swaying back and forth softly.

Natalie burrowed her head on his shoulder as she gripped his hand tightly.

▹▹▹

A/N: Another Chapter, yay! This one sucked too, though. But anyways, we're already done with about 1/3 of season 2 and that's great.

Votes and comments are greatly apprectiated.