the truth comes out eventually

"ELENA WAS ATTACKED LAST NIGHT, BY A VAMPIRE."

Athena raised an eyebrow, looking up from one of the many books at her disposal thanks to Stefan and Damon's library. "Is she dead?"

Lexi shook her head.

"Then it was pointless," She huffs, turning to another page.

"I still don't know why I got put on Elena-watch, of all people,"

"Probably because the other options were a homicidal vampire, her ex-boyfriend who's also a vampire, and me– and we all know that I would let her die."

Lexi goes to argue, but she stops herself short when she realizes the teenage girl is right. "Well, she's pretty shaken up, but she's apparently still going to this dance at the high school tonight."

Athena hums again, barely taking her eyes off the book about demons in her lap. "Yeah, the decade dance."

"Are you going to the dance?"

"I have to, seeing as my ex-girlfriend constantly volunteers me for things I don't want to do,"

Lexi raises her eyebrows, sitting down on the couch across from Athena. "Do you have a date for this dance?"

"Why on earth would I have a date to the dance I didn't want to attend in the first place?"

"Well, perhaps if there was a certain vampire that wanted to attend with you–"

"I'm not into you like that, Lexi, I thought we established that."

Lexi's face falls into a glare. "First of all, everyone's into me. Second of all, you're horrible at deflecting."

Athena smiles, slamming the book in her lap closed after finding nothing useful yet again. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Lexi. And I think this conversation could happen later, okay?"

She looks over her shoulder right as Stefan enters the living room, Athena's bag slung over his shoulder. "Ready to go?"

"I've been waiting on you,"

He sighs, giving her a knowing look. "I was getting that vervain for Caroline,"

Lexi snorts. "And mentally preparing yourself for the thousands of questions that Elena is going to have after last night's conversation."

"Oh, so you did talk to her," Athena props her head up on the back of the couch, twisting to face Stefan completely. "About what, exactly?"

"I told her the truth about Katherine, and how she was adopted, which is why there haven't been any other doppelgängers in the Gilbert bloodline."

Athena's eyes widen, and she sits up on the couch. "Elena is adopted? When was anyone going to tell me this?"

"Why does it matter?" Lexi looks at her, confused by her sudden interest in Elena.

"First off– why would they choose Elena, of all babies? Couldn't they sense that she was going to grow up to be a grade-A bitch?" She holds her hands out confusedly. "And now, I've realized she's been torturing me for months over parents that weren't even her real ones, which makes her even more of a bitch."

Stefan heaves a sigh, stepping towards the couch she was seated on. "Didn't you ever learn that it's bad to speak ill of the dead?"

"Most of the dead are dead for a reason, and it's because they were useless when they were alive."

He furrows his brows. "I'm technically dead, you know,"

She raises a sharp brow at him. "And?"

──────

Athena looks around the gym as she walks in, her arm intertwined with Damon's. The music blares around them and her eyes land on where Caroline is dancing with Bonnie, the two drawing more eyes than they were aware of.

The sight makes her smile as she's reminded of her and Stefan's dinner with Bonnie the other night which had been shockingly normal, despite their rocky past. It just further proved her point that anyone that was willingly within a two-mile radius of Elena Gilbert automatically sucked, but the second Elena was out of the picture, everything was fine.

Damon nudged her gently, gesturing to the other side of the gym where Stefan stood with Lexi beside him, the two friends observing the current generation's take on a decade they had lived through. "Oh, he's even got the leather jacket. You might as well get married now."

"Shut up, you asshole," She slugs his arm with her free hand and drops their arms, making Damon turn to face him. "So, you're going to watch Elena tonight?"

"I guess so. According to Stefan, this is the least I owe Lexi for trying to kill her."

"I would have to agree,"

"But," He continued pointedly, ignoring her comment. "If I find the vampire that's trying to kill her, I'll come find you and you can have the finishing blow."

He glances down at her, scanning her over quickly with a raised eyebrow. "You're sure none of those books had any information about what's going on with you?"

"None whatsoever,"

"Well, Stefan almost caught me this morning looking for something on the bookshelves. He thought I was looking for our father's journal to try and figure out how to open the tomb."

Athena heaves a sigh. "I'm gonna tell him soon, I swear,"

"Hey, don't swear to me. It's Stefan's hurt feelings you'll have to deal with," He holds his hands up in surrender and Athena pushes him off towards the dance floor. "In the meantime, I'm going to dance. Maybe I'll ask Caroline for a song or two,"

"Leave her alone, Damon!" Athena rolls her eyes and begins walking through the hoard of people, accidentally bumping into a tall frame. She glances up, plastering a smile on her painted lips. "Sorry, Mr. Saltzman."

The new history teacher shakes his head, waving off her concern. "No worries, Athena. Things are pretty crowded in here."

She nods in agreement, missing the way his eyes dart between her and where Damon is moving on the dance floor amongst a bunch of teens that had too much of the spiked punch.

The crowd parts and she takes a sigh of relief as she makes it to Stefan, wondering briefly where Lexi went off to while twisting a few of the curls that sit atop her head in a mess of hairspray and pins that are sure to make a home there for the next twelve hours at least.

"Athena?"

The brunette's eyes widen and she looks up from her red shoes, meeting Stefan's wide-eyed gaze. A smile breaks on her face and she takes a few more steps towards him, closing the distance so they can speak over the bass reverberating through the gym. "What do you think?"

He looks her up and down, from the scarlet red shoes that match the tantalizing shade on her plump lips to the all-black leather ensemble that looks like a second skin on her frame. He heaves a sigh and meets her gaze. "I think that you look stunning. Really, you, uh, exceeded my expectations,"

Her eyebrows raise, interest shining in her brown eyes lined with black liner. "Oh? And what expectations were those?"

He steps towards her, closing the distance between them as he wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her gently to the dance floor. "Well, I knew you'd be the most beautiful girl here, but it doesn't mean you still didn't surprise me. Dance?"

Athena's cheeks heat and she's grateful for the dim lighting that hides her flush. "I'll always accept a dance offer from you, Mr. Salvatore."

She takes his offered hand and follows him on the dance floor, laughing when he makes a show of pulling her into his chest.

"So, Stefan," She hums his name, looking up at him still despite her heels. "Please tell me that there are pictures of you from the fifties somewhere in a box."

"No," He shakes his head, smiling despite his refusal. "They've all been burned, or buried. Both. Anything that saves me from your ridicule."

She laughs, bringing her hands up to the back of his neck. "I would never make fun of you, and I'm truly offended that you assume such a thing. Not very gentlemanly of you, is it?"

He sighs, arms tightening around her leather-clad waist. "I'm not much of a gentleman, didn't you know?"

Her eyes widened, glazed over with infatuation. "You had me fooled,"

He grins down at her, eyes dropping down to the salacious grin spread on her red lips he seemed incapable of tearing his eyes off. "That's all part of the plan. You're charmed, and you think I'm a real nice guy, that I'll walk you to the door after our first date and give you a kiss goodnight–"

"I don't kiss on the first date, what do you take me for?"

"But," He looks down at her pointedly, still grinning widely as they sway with the slower songs. "I'm a predator. We hunt, we stalk, and we don't stop until we get our prey. It's in our nature."

Her hands rest on the soft strands of hair at the back of his head and she hums, familiar deviousness glimmering in her eyes in a way that pulls him impossibly closer. "And have you caught your prey yet?"

Stefan narrows his eyes at her, heart racing at the breathiness in her voice. "You'll know when I do, sweetheart,"

Her eyes widen briefly and he hears the spike in her pulse, grinning at the way she seems to react to his term of endearment.

"Sweetheart, huh? Did you use that on all the ladies back in the day?"

"Only the ones I really liked," He taunts, relishing in the laugh she lets out.

"Well, I like it. Keep it up, hotshot, and you might just be worthy to be my Danny Zuko after all."

Athena's smile splits her face and she glances behind Stefan's shoulder just in time to see Elena take off running into the hallways, with the menacing man following right behind her. Her smile falls, catching Stefan's attention immediately.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

"Go find Damon, and go towards the science classroom. I'll meet you there."

"What's going on?" Stefan stops her from taking off, pulling her back towards him with their intertwined hands.

"I found the vampire that's trying to kill Elena," She shakes her head. "And this bitch owes me, big time."

Athena runs after them without another word.

──────

Athena slides to a stop in the doorway of the cafeteria, regaining her balance on her heels quickly, coming up on the scene of Elena being thrown across a lunch table like she weighed nothing. She huffs a breath, glancing behind her for any sign of Stefan or Damon, only to see nothing.

He flips the table he'd thrown Elena over and Elena scrambles away with a pained cry, grabbing for any sort of leverage.

"Hey!" Athena's voice echoes through the lunchroom and she waves at the vampire when he glares at her interruption.

The vampire furrows his eyebrows but turns his attention away from Elena to approach her. Athena meets him halfway and immediately swings, her fist slamming into his jaw. His head snaps to the side but he recovers quickly and grabs her arm, gripping her tight in a way she knows will bruise badly.

He throws her towards Elena with barely a blink and Athena yelps when her shoulder slams against the tile and she hears something pop in her ears.

She hears Elena cry out her name and she ignores the hysterical girl, dragging herself to her knees, her brown eyes searching the floor. She sees scattered pencils near Elena's feet and she snaps her fingers at the girl to gather her attention.

Silently, Athena gestures to the pencils and pushes herself to her feet as Elena catches onto her train of thought and uses her shoe to push the pencils over to Athena's feet. "Elena, run. Go get Stefan and Damon. Now!"

Right as the vampire reaches her, Athena brings her knee up and hits him in the stomach, making him double over. She uses his moment of weakness to slam her clenched fist into his nose and he cries out, falling to the floor as the bones in his nose break and heal within seconds.

Athena reaches down, grimacing with a choked cry at the movement in her injured shoulder as she grabs a handful of pencils and stomps over to the vampire.

His arm swings up and Athena intercepts it, stabbing a pencil through the center of his hand with a groan at the force. She quickly switches the pencils to her other hand, slams them down right beneath his heart, and pushes herself backward, kicking off her heels as she goes.

She stumbles backward as she pushes her shoes out of the way and startles when something hits her back. She glances over her shoulder, seeing the mop bucket and her eyes fall to the wooden handle.

With a groan at the angle, she twists her arm, grabs the mop, and breaks the handle over her knee, throwing the rest of it to the side.

She lunges at him, swinging the makeshift stake like a bat at his neck. The sharpened wood slices his skin and he stumbles backward, groaning at the pain.

Athena swings again, this time at the side of his legs, and watches as they crumple beneath him. She follows him to the ground, pinning him beneath her as she straddles his chest and holds the stake against his throat, making him gasp for air.

"What do you want with Elena?"

He gasps, but a cold smile twists at his parted lips. "She looks like Katherine,"

Athena's eyes widen and she looks at the vampire with sudden curiosity. "If you know Katherine, then you know how to open the tomb. Tell me,"

"No,"

Athena shifts the stake's position and hovers it over his heart, piercing his skin ever so slightly. "Now, dickhead,"

He groans at the pain ebbing through his body at the girl's actions. "The grimoire," He pants out, looking around for any sort of leverage over the strength the girl possesses.

"Where do I find the grimoire?"

The vampire hesitates, shaking his head, and Athena punctures his heart a bit more, leaning her weight off of her left arm where she's sure a few large bruises are forming around whatever she's broken or dislocated.

"The journal!" He exclaims, panting pained breaths. "Check the journal. Jonathan Gilbert's journal."

Athena sighs, rolling her eyes at the constant involvement of the Gilbert family. They just couldn't leave well enough alone in any century.

"Who else is working with you?"

The vampire doesn't answer even as Athena's frustration begins to boil over. "Who else is there?" Her voice echoes through the empty room, and she presses the stake into his heart inch by inch.

"No," The vampire groans. "You're gonna have to kill me."

Athena chuckles to herself right as the doors burst open, and she glances up just as Stefan and Damon skid to a stop a few feet away with a hysterical Elena in tow. "If you say you," She retracts the stake from his chest completely, making him yell out in pain. "Just so you know, if anyone is going to kill Elena, it's gonna be me."

She punctuates her statement by piercing his heart, watching his eyes widen at the sudden torture throughout his body.

"Athena!" Stefan's concerned voice echoes through the lunchroom and she pushes herself to her feet and watches the vampire desiccate on the tiled floor as she stumbles into Stefan's side, the vampire gathering her in his arms willingly. He takes notice of the way she cradles her injured arm and avoids it, wrapping an arm around her waist so she can stand up straight.

"What–" Elena gasps, barely able to tear her eyes away from the man on the floor to look at Athena and Stefan. "How are you gonna find the others now?"

Damon shakes his head, eyeing Athena closely before looking at Elena. "He had to die."

"But,"

"Elena," Stefan says, tone less wild than it was before he'd set eyes on Athena again. "He'd been invited into your house."

Elena seems to be reminded of the fact, and the glaring point that he wouldn't have stopped until she was dead because he was a predatory creature in nature. She steps back slightly, still trying to catch her breath as she calms down.

A noise echoes from the hallway, and the four of them look up in unison just in time to see the new history teacher scurry away from the paned doors.

Stefan looks to Damon, who shrugs him off. "I got this, you stay here."

Damon disappears to deal with Mr. Saltzman and Stefan helps Athena gather her shoes while he ensures Elena will be safe to return home tonight now that the threat against her has been eliminated.

Elena nods to herself, but stops, turning to face Athena as she slides her shoes back on her feet. "Hey, um, thank you. For, you know," She gestures to the vampire's body that Stefan has grabbed hastily, walking towards the emergency exit doors to dispose of it. "Saving my life."

Athena huffs, still cradling her injured arm. "Yeah, well, it's not the first time I've done it, if you recall."

Elena hesitates, her eyebrows furrowing as she trudges through her trauma-addled brain back to the night of the car accident when Athena had pushed her away from where she was stuck in the windshield, urging her to get to the surface.

When the EMTs told Elena that Athena might not make it, she remembers feeling guilty, but the thought of her parents dying just seemed to trump everything.

So, it's what she focused on. Her brain twisted everything possible once she was sure Athena had survived, despite the odds. If Athena had drowned and been resuscitated, why couldn't her parents have been, too?

Athena survived, and her parents didn't. It wasn't fair.

So she did everything she could to make Athena feel even a fraction of what Elena felt after losing her parents, yet nothing seemed to affect the girl's brazen approach to life. Even now, after she'd killed yet another vampire, she seemed normal. Annoyed, even, at the thought of having to deal with a dead body. Like she'd chipped her manicure, not stabbed someone through the heart.

Elena was envious of the way Athena seemed to live her life unaffected by anything. Elena just wanted to see what was behind her carefully crafted mask, she wanted to know that the girl she'd envied for so long wasn't perfect after all. Yet nothing seemed to give way to prove that.

The doppelgänger inhaled sharply, fighting the sudden shiver that came over her when she looked into Athena's nearly-black eyes again. "I'm gonna," She gestures to the double doors. "I'm gonna go home. Thank you, Athena. Really."

Elena hurries out of the lunchroom and Stefan returns soon after, his focus solely on Athena.

"Hey, are you alright?" He rests a hand on her waist, his thumb caressing the soft leather there repeatedly.

Athena smiles tightly, her scar pulling as tension settles in, taking the place of the adrenaline she'd felt moments earlier. "I'm tired, I want to go home and go to bed."

Stefan nods, his eyes falling to her injured arm. "Dislocated shoulder?"

She nods, eyes fluttering shut with exhaustion.

"So, uh," He clears his throat, making her open her eyes again. "How much work is taking your hair down gonna be?"

She shakes her head, plump curls shifting with her. "I am terrified by the answer, honestly. I don't even want to–"

Stefan grabs her arm and pushes her shoulder back, making Athena cry out in shock and pain as it jolts into place. She grabs her shoulder with her uninjured arm immediately, gasping for breath in between each pulse of pain that shoots through her.

"Oh, my god!" She exclaims, looking up at Stefan with a glare that only darkens when she sees the slight amusement on his face. "I will never trust an innocent conversation with you again. How did you know that would work? What if you'd broken my arm?"

"I didn't break your arm,"

"Yeah, but you could've," She huffs, leaning against his side as they exit the lunchroom and head towards Damon through the darkened halls.

"I was just sort of guessing," He shrugs, chuckling at her exclamation of concern. "I'm kidding, Athena. I'll give you some of my blood when we get home if you want."

She huffs a breath, upturning her nose at him. "I don't want your blood. You know what would be a good start to your apology, though?"

"A good start?" He echoes disbelievingly, ignoring Damon's eye roll at their behavior. "What else do you want?"

"If you buy me a coffee before school tomorrow, I might forgive you."

"Are you–"

"Alright, alright," Damon interrupts, holding his hands up at the two of them. "That's enough of your sickening behavior. Athena, please tell me you didn't kill the vampire before you got answers."

She heaved a sigh at him, waiting for Stefan to lean against the brick wall before she leaned her weight against him again. "He said he knew Katherine,"

Damon's eyes widen and she nods, tucking a few misplaced curls behind her ear. "And in order to find the grimoire, we had to look in Jonathan Gilbert's journal– wherever the hell that is."

"Did he say who he was working with?"

Athena shook her head at him.

"There's no way that idiot was working alone,"

Stefan smiles sarcastically. "You are."

Damon mocks his smile, before dropping it with a roll of his eyes.

"So the grimoire," Stefan continues, glancing down at Athena. "That was Emily's, right? That's what you need to reverse the spell. When the founding families burned her, they took her things, and you were hoping that Dad's journal would tell you where it is."

Damon's eyes flicker to Athena, who is stiff at the mention of Damon's fake search for their father's journal in order to hide her condition from Stefan. Damon plasters a smile on his face, giving his brother a convincing look. "Look at you, putting the pieces together. Good for you. I was half-right."

Athena clears her throat, straightening up a bit. "Well, what do we do to find Jonathan Gilbert's journal? I doubt Elena even knows where it is, I'm pretty sure she didn't know it existed before tonight."

Damon heaves a sigh, giving her a small nod. "Let the games begin,"

"The deal stands, Damon," Stefan looks at his brother, eyes flashing with a warning. "I'll be there when you open the tomb, you and Katherine go, and the other 26 vampires die."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I'm your brother,"

Damon hums, pushing himself off the wall and beginning to walk back through the darkened hallways. "That's not gonna cut it, brother. Find something worth my time, and my trust, and maybe I'll consider your proposal."

He flashes Stefan a smirk over his shoulder. "I hope you find it before I get that tomb open, though."

──────

Athena cries out as her body grows hot, that increasingly familiar feeling of molten fire crawling through her faster than ever. Her knees hit the ground as she stumbles out of bed and she claws at the floors of the boarding house, her cries echoing into the bedroom.

"Athena, my darling,"

Her father's voice echoes through her mind and she furrows her brows, panting as she tries to catch a breath. "Dad? What– what are you doing here? I'm– I'm at Stefan's,"

"Athena, open your eyes," His soothing voice coaxes her as it always had, and she looks up at him through what she knows must be a horrifying sight to see from your child. Her eyes burning like the sun, empty of the life usually seen within her gaze. Her olive skin tainted with the poison running through her body.

He sighs, kissing his tongue to his teeth. "This was not supposed to happen yet."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You were never supposed to go through this, I tried to be ready–"

"Dad, what's happening to me?" Her voice is weak as she calls out to his fading figure.

He simply sighs again and shakes his head. "I can't come home yet, Athena. It will be some time, but I swear I will explain everything. Just please, stay safe. Stay with Stefan until I'm home."

"Why? Dad, just tell me why!"

"Athena,"

"Dad!"

"Athena, wake up!"

She sits up with a gasp, nearly head-butting Stefan from the speed of her consciousness. She shoves past him and rushes to the ensuite bathroom, coughing around nothing. She empties the contents of her stomach, eyes watering at the burning sensation throughout her lungs.

A hand comes behind her and gathers her hair into a makeshift ponytail, and she only forces her eyes open when she hears Stefan's sharp gasp.

She realizes what he's startled by when she looks down and sees the thick, radiant liquid staining the porcelain toilet. "Oh, god," She whimpers, pushing herself back from the toilet and out of Stefan's reach.

"Athena, what is that? What's going on with you?" He shakes his head, trying to calm his racing heart. "Why were you screaming?"

She pulls her knees to her chest and shakes her head, refusing to open her eyes and look at him. "No, no, you can't,"

"Athena, look at me," His hands grasp either side of her face and still her frantic movements. "I promise, whatever it is, you'll be fine. Just open your eyes."

She pauses, contemplating her options. It was pointless to fight.

Forcibly, she opens her eyes, waiting for his horrified words or some exclamation that she was a monster. When she receives nothing, she meets his stare and blinks through the tears clumping her dark lashes together.

"Athena, what's going on?"

She lets out a shaky sigh. "You weren't supposed to find out like this,"

────── 

author's note; this is completely self indulgent but let's pretend damon is watching out for elena in the background while athena and stefan eye-fuck on the dance floor 

originally published; 11.18.20. 

edited: 11.28.23. 

- liz