𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙒𝙀𝙇𝙑𝙀
ミ★ ( lion and the lamb, act one ) ★彡

Hazel isn't happy with the fact that Elena had decided to take away Jeremy's choices, or his memories without consulting anyone else about it. She didn't believe her sister to be that selfish. She could understand the decision had Jeremy actually asked to forget, but he said nothing of the sort. Elena had no right to make that decision for him, and every time she looks at Jeremy now, she can't help but feel guilty; because he's fine, but it wasn't his decision to be that way—if it was his choice, he would've been torn up about it and she would've preferred it because he was experiencing his emotions rather than fitting a mould that forced upon him. Hazel can't even look at Elena for what she did, and she can't had the heart to talk to Stefan because he's equally to blame for this. She just couldn't believe they would just comply with a request like that.

Elena was sitting on the couch, watching the television sadly since she and Hazel weren't talking when Jenna comes and sits down next to her while Jeremy was writing behind them, "You're wallowing." Jenna comments. She's noticed that the twins aren't talking, and recognises that they're fighting. But, she knows them well enough to not intervene and that they'll sort their thing out eventually.

"So are you." Elena retorts as she plays with the fabric on the blanket that was draped on her to keep her warm.

"My wallow is legitimate. I was dumped." Jenna argues lightheartedly, "You didn't get a brush-off e-mail say 'I'm leaving town. See ya.'" Jenna says, rolling her eyes at it.

"Yeah, well, Logan's a jerk." Elena grumbles.

Jenna looks at Elena, who has a permanent frown on her face and presses her lips into a thin line, "You should go make up with your sister. It's just damn depressing in this house when you fight." She suggests.

Elena sighs, "She's mad at me. I already apologised, but, she's not having it." She tells her, "You know how she gets; she just needs some time."

Jenna doesn't like the response Elena gave but doesn't get to respond because Jeremy pipes up instead, "Wanna keep it down over there?"

Jenna sits up on the couch and turns to look at her nephew, "Why? What are you doing?"

"Homework."

Elena makes a face at his answer and sits up also to look back at him, "Since when do you do homework?" Jeremy wasn't the type to do any school work and she's surprised he hasn't been held back a year because of it, and she assumes that Damon must've added some extra compulsion on top of her request. She wants to ask Hazel about it since she was in the room when it happened, but she knows she won't get a response since Hazel isn't speaking to her.

Jeremy only continues his studying as he says, "I gotta finish this. I'm way behind and I have a quiz tomorrow so..."

Elena and Jenna share surprised glances, "What do you think? Alien?" Elena asks.

Jenna eyes Jeremy, "Some sort of replicant."

Jeremy stops what he was doing and looks at them, "He can hear you."

Bonnie knocks on Hazel's door to her room and enters it a couple days later and sees that the oldest Gilbert was lying down in her bed, "You up?" She asks.

"No." Hazel says and Bonnie walks over and tries to pull the covers off Hazel's head, "Bonnie, no!"

Bonnie eventually gets the covers off of Hazel and sits on the bed next to her, "Why haven't you called me back? And why aren't you talking to Elena?"

Hazel lets out a puff of air, "I'm not really talking to anyone at the moment—especially her." She answers before looking at Bonnie with a sad look, "I'm sorry."

Bonnie looks at Hazel and notices the dark circles are worse than normal, and she has a permanent shake to her hands that tells her she's extremely anxious about something, and she's pale too, "Have you been sleeping much?" She asks and Hazel only shakes her head, "Move over." Bonnie orders and Hazel makes room for her in the bed, and the Bennett girl lies next to her underneath the covers, using her elbow to hold herself up and say, "Okay. I'm officially worried. What's going on?"

"I'm tired of thinking... of talking, I—"

"Can I get a one-line version so I can at least pretend to be helpful?" Bonnie requests.

"Elena did something that upset me and didn't ask me if I would be okay with it, and can't see why I'm so upset." Hazel starts, "And I'm thinking of calling it quits with Stefan—yet again."

Bonnie's eyes soften. She knows all about the twins and their dynamic—and she's seen this very situation happen many times before in the past. Elena makes a decision that affects both herself and Hazel, and doesn't see why doing that would bother her sister. Elena would apologise and Hazel would forgive her instantly, even when she doesn't deserve her forgiveness. It happens every time like clockwork. The Bennett girl sighs, "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" She asks and Hazel sends her a look, "Right. Stupid question. Sorry."

Hazel lets out a puff of air, "I just want to get my mind off it for a bit." She says. She then looks at Bonnie, "Sorry. You probably didn't come here to listen to me whine. What's up?"

"Come on. I want to show you and Elena something." Bonnie says as she gets out of the bed and drags Hazel to Elena's room, who was already waiting for them since Bonnie told her to wait for her there. Bonnie then closes the window and grabs one of Elena's pillows. She rips it and empties it of the feathers.

"Hey!" Elena yells.

"Be patient." Bonnie tells her.

"Okay." Elena replies with pursed lips.

Bonnie then sits on the bed in front of the twins and says, "I need to swear you to secrecy."

Elena chuckles bitterly, "It's kind of a bad week for that kind of stuff."

"Swear, 'cause I'm not supposed to be showing you this." Bonnie says.

"Okay, we swear." Hazel promises.

"There's no windows open, right?" Bonnie asks and Elena looks around and shakes her head to confirm what she was saying was true, "There's no fan. No air conditioning."

"None." Elena confirms, "What are you doing?"

"Grams just showed me this. You're gonna love it. You ready?" She asks. Hazel and Elena nod their heads and Bonnie levitates a feather in front of them before lowering it down slowly.

Their eyes widen, "Bonnie, what's going on?" Hazel asks with shock.

Bonnie only smiles and takes in a deep breath before she levitates several more. The twins watch on with shock and amazement as feathers levitate around the room like magic. Hazel gasps as covers her mouth with shock as Bonnie smiles at their wonder, relieved that they didn't take it badly—although she never doubted for a second that they would, especially not Hazel, "It's true. Everything my Grams told me. It's impossible, and it's true. I'm a witch."

Elena nods with a smile as she says, "I believe you."

Bonnie drops the feathers and they fall around the bed lightly, "It's weird, huh? After all the times joking about being psychic. I really am a witch." She comments and the three of them laugh in disbelief. Bonnie then frowns in worry, "You don't think I'm a freak now, do you?"

Hazel shakes her head, "No, of course not. Bonnie I just... don't understand though. If your Grams asked you to keep all this a secret, why did you tell us?"

Bonnie shrugs as if it's obvious, "You're my best friends. I can't keep secrets from you."

Elena and Hazel could only share a look of guilt knowing their own secret that they have been keeping from her.

Later that afternoon, Hazel heads up to the Salvatore Boarding House. She's decided she wants to ask Stefan about why he thought it was a good idea to let Elena make a decision to compel Jeremy without discussing it with either of them first, and she wants to tell him that it's getting to her keeping his secret when Bonnie openly told her straight away about her own. When she knocks on the door, she hears a female voice yell out that the door was open and to come in. She thinks it's strange that there was a woman's voice being heard from inside the Salvatore home, because she knows there isn't a woman that lives there but enters anyway.

She sees a blonde girl walk towards the door in only a towel, still wet from the shower and her eyes widen, as does hers when she sees Hazel, "Oh, my God!" She exclaims, "How... uh—wh—who?" She stammers out.

"I'm Hazel." Hazel tells her, her eyebrows pulled together in confusion because this girl must be very comfortable with the Salvatores to be parading around their home in only a towel. The girl's face then changes as if she recognises her name, "Who are you?"

"Lexi." She says, barely blinking as she stares her down, "I'm a friend of Stefan's."

"Is he here?" Hazel asks awkwardly, because now she knows she comfortable with Stefan while parading around in only a towel. Friend, my ass, she thinks, she's sizing you up.

"He's in the shower." Lexi tells her and her heart pangs with jealousy and hurt because her mind has jumped to a conclusion that they were in the shower together. She knows they aren't exactly together but she didn't think that he thought it would be fine for him to sleep with someone else. She wants to let you know that he's hers, "Do you want to wait?"

"No." Hazel answers. She wants to be far away from this whole thing right now, and she wants to be far away from Stefan and his new girl. She can have him.

Lexi offers her an awkward smile, and it's clear to Hazel that her niceness isn't genuine because she's not happy that she's there, "I'll tell him you stopped by."

"That's okay..." Hazel declines as she turns on her heels and walks out of the house in shock that she just witnessed that.

Once Hazel was gone, Lexi goes to Stefan's bedroom and she's furious at him, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" She snaps at him.

Stefan looks at her with confusion as to what happened for her to be so angry when she was in a great mood not too long ago, "What are you talking about?"

"I just met Hazel." Lexi says as she holds up Stefan's photo of Katherine from 1864 and he seemed surprised to hear that she had stopped by, "You have some serious explaining to do."

     "It's not what you think. She's not Katherine." Stefan begins to explain while Lexi walks off to another room to get dressed.

     "Then they're related and you have some serious emotional damage, cause they could be twins." Lexi retorts from the other room before she comes out.

     Stefan puts his hands in his pockets as Lexi begins to apply her makeup. He knows they couldn't be twins because Hazel has a human twin of her own, "I don't know."

     "You don't know or you didn't find out?" Lexi questions.

     "No. Maybe. I don't want to know." Stefan answers, "I have no desire to tie Hazel to Katherine." He tells her and sees Lexi's expression which makes him sigh, "Okay, yes, the resemblance is what drew me in. But, that's it. Katherine and Hazel may look the same on the outside, but on the inside they are completely different."

     "Oh, so, Hazel is not a raging bitch then, huh?" Lexi retorts as she looks in the compact mirror to fix her hair.

     Stefan smiles as he thinks about Hazel, "No." He tells her and he sits down beside her on one of the chairs, "Hazel is... Hazel's warm and she's... she's kind, and she's caring, and she's selfless, and it's real. And honestly when I'm around her, I... I completely forget what I am."

     "Oh, my God." Lexi whispers when she realises what he's insinuating, "You're in love with her."

      Stefan looks down before he smiles, "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

Later that night, Hazel opens the door to find Stefan standing on her porch, "Hey." He whispers.

Hazel wants to be surprised that he's there, but, after what happened earlier that afternoon, she's not. She lets out an exhale and leans against the doorway, "I'm assuming Lexi told you I stopped by."

Stefan nods and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, "Yeah, she did. She said you seemed upset."

"Well, she was just in a towel with only you in the house so..." Hazel replies, her tone stating it should be obvious that she would be a bit upset to think the guy she kind of likes has been sleeping with some other girl.

"A towel?" Stefan's eyebrows shot up and Hazel hums to confirm that's indeed what she says, "Oh, no. No no no, not like that, she's not exactly a girl—Lexi's, um... she's 350 years old."

Realisation dawns on her, "You means she's like you?"

Stefan nods, "And she's my oldest friend. Nothing romantic—ever." He assures her and Hazel feels stupid for assuming. People always do say it's bad to jump to conclusions, but, it was just hard not to.

She lets out a small sigh of relief, "Oh, okay, well.... she kept staring at me. It was weird." She commented as she gestures to let him in the house, "I thought it was a territorial thing, but, I guess not."

"Well, you know, I've talked about you a lot... so, I guess she felt like she knew you." Stefan explains her behaviour and Hazel's eyebrows shot up to hear that he talks about her to his friends, "So, why'd you come by?"

"I—uh... it was stupid." Hazel shakes her head, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear awkwardly. She doesn't have the guts to chew him out anymore.

"Talk to me." Stefan pleads.

Hazel sighs deeply, "Okay." She agrees, "I guess I'm just frustrated because of what happened with Jeremy and the fact that no one thought to ask if it was what he wanted to forget. I felt like my opinion, or Jeremy's wasn't important, and it made me feel really crappy that Elena just demanded something and everyone fell to her feet." She admits and Stefan is starting to see the cracks in their relationship that Caroline had pointed out to him at the founder's party. Hazel and Elena are close, but it feels like a competition between them, "Then I'm struggling to keep all these secrets from everyone—I can't even tell my best friend who told me her own very big secret right away. I just feel really crappy about the whole thing because I can't talk to anyone about it besides Elena, who I'm not even talking to at the moment. Do you know how hard that is? It's like I need to talk to someone, but, the only person I can talk to besides Elena is you.... and..."

Stefan can see the hurt in her eyes about the whole thing and regrets not speaking up to Elena and Damon on the porch. Maybe this whole thing could've been avoided if he did, "I want you to know that I will always be here for you. You can come to me about anything, okay?"

Hazel nods, though she's still confused as to where they stand, "Well, thank you for coming by."

Stefan nods back at her and walks towards the front door before he stops and turns to her, "Hey, do you need a ride to the Grill tonight?"

She looks amused to ask, "Are you going to Caroline's party?"

"Lexi's dragging me." He says and her smile drops at the mention of Lexi, and the fact that he's so adventurous with her, whereas they struggle to do anything normal like couples do; this would be one of those things if they could just get it together, "And... it's my birthday."

"Really?" Hazel asks in shock because she had no idea. Stefan nods with a smile, "Wow—um, happy birthday then." She says and Stefan thanks her, "But, actually, I—I think I'm gonna stay in tonight. Elena's already there, though."

Hazel isn't sure what compelled her to go to the stupid party at the Grill, but she goes. She thinks it's the guilt because she hasn't seen Caroline in the longest time since she's been so focused on Stefan and his vampire drama, and there's possibly a small part of her that wants to see him; even though she's embarrassed to admit that and that she didn't want to be in the house by herself.

     When she arrives, she sees Stefan with Lexi by the pool tables, speaking and having a great time with each other while they drink, laugh and play pool. Her fake and confident smile drops as she sees them, as does any courage to approach him. He doesn't smile like that with her.

     Her heart hurts thinking about it and she can't help but turn on her feet and walk away from the Grill and back to the comfort of her own home. He says they're just friends and there is nothing romantic there; but, she can't give him what Lexi does.

     Meanwhile, Elena was sitting at one of the booths in the Grill, thinking to herself after she had a questionable conversation with Damon about Jeremy. She had wondered what else he had done to Jeremy after she asked him to compel away his memory of Vicki because he was acting different. He seemed okay with everything—and possibly a little too okay. He was studying; he wasn't doing drugs and he wasn't drinking anymore. Damon had claimed he only took away his suffering. She had seen Hazel enter the Grill and walk out shortly after, especially once she saw Stefan and the mysterious blonde girl—who Damon had told her was Lexi, Stefan's best friend. He had even told her about the unfortunate run in Hazel had with Lexi, hence why she probably left as soon as she saw him with her again. Elena wants to chase after her, but ultimately decides to give her space.

     Lexi was at the bar, ordering some drinks for herself, "Two shots of tequila." She orders and turns to see Elena by herself, "Make that three."

     "I need to see some ID." The barman requests.

     Lexi looks at him, "No, you don't." She says, using her compulsion, "And it'll be free."

     The barman makes the drinks and hands them to her before she leaves the bar with the tequila and goes over towards Elena at her booth, "Oh! The famous Hazel."

     Elena shifts in her seat uncomfortably, "I'm Elena, actually." She says, pointing to her necklace with the letter E on it for Elena.

      Lexi's eyes widen at the information because Stefan neglected to tell her that Hazel had a twin, "There's two of you?" She asks in shock.

     Elena nods as if it's obvious, "Twins means two, yes." She says back, "And you're the towel girl. I heard all about you."

     Lexi thinks about it for a moment, remembering how Stefan told her that Hazel remembered her name, but this Elena girl only referred to her as 'the towel girl'. That was all she needed to know about the differences between them. She shrugs, "I've been called worse." She admits before offering Elena a shot of tequila, "Here."

     Elena reluctantly takes tequila from her, "I didn't know that you guys could drink." She knows that Lexi is a vampire from Damon, but she's never seen them drink. It's still all crazy since she grew up reading Twilight, and her information from that told her that vampires couldn't drink, eat or sleep, but the vampires in front of her did it all.

     "Oh, yeah, it helps curb the cravings, but, makes for a lot of lushy vamps." Lexi explains.

      Elena laughs while Lexi takes a shot. She then shakes her head, "You know, I've never seen Stefan drunk. He always seem so..."

      "Uptight?" Lexi interrupts with a raised eyebrow.

     Elena nods, "Yeah." She says, "But, not with you."

     "Well, that the benefit of knowing someone for over a hundred years. You can just be yourself." The blonde vampire replies.

     "Yeah, it seems he can't be himself with my sister..." Elena thought they would be a good match when they all first met, but now, it seems she couldn't be more wrong—the whole thing solidified once they found out about the whole vampire thing.

     Lexi raises an eyebrow again. What a weird observation to have about your own twin and her relationship, she thinks; especially since Stefan had a different opinion about the whole thing, "Well, not yet." Lexi disagrees, "The first step was him telling her. The rest comes with time."

     "You seem so sure."

     "The love of my life was human." Lexi admits, "He went through, what I imagine your sister is going through: denial, anger, etcetera. But, at the end of the day, love really did conquer all. Take it from someone who's been around a long time. When it's real, you can't walk away." She says wisely before gestures to Elena's tequila with a smirk, "Are you going to drink that?"

     "Go for it." Elena says and hands Lexi her drink, who shots it down straight away. She then smiles as Lexi goes to walk away, "It was really nice meeting you, Lexi." She tells her and laughs as Lexi drinks the last tequila—which was most likely Stefan's.

    Lexi then returns to the pool table where Stefan was playing, "Yep, I drank yours, sorry." She says, though it's not clear she's not really sorry, "Now, explain to me what is really going on with those freaky Katherine twins."

     Stefan looks down, "I don't know. Hazel is wonderful, but—"

     "No buts." Lexi interrupts, hoping it wasn't him about to admit his feelings for both of the twins and assumes he was about to make an excuse about Hazel not talking to him after everything, "She's scared, Stefan. Give her time. It's obvious she's crazy about you, too."

     Stefan smiles, "Thank you." He needs to hear that. He's so in his own head about everything that he needs a rational person to help guide him out of his own thoughts.

     Lexi then pinches him, "And you weren't supposed to be listening." She tells him and shrugs shyly when sees his face, "I was feeling epic, whatever."

     Later in the night, Lexi walks up to Damon with drinks in her hand and places them in front of him rather harshly as she says, "Alright, the shots are a bribe. I need you to answer a question." She tells him, placing her hands on her hips, "What are you really doing in Mystic Falls?"

     "Have you tried the brittle? It wins awards." Damon replies.

     Lexi isn't impressed by his idea of a joke, "Cut the crap." She deadpans.

     Damon takes a shot, "Okay, I have a diabolical master plan."

     "What is it?"

     "If I told you it wouldn't be very diabolical, now would it?" Damon retorts.

     Meanwhile, Sheriff Forbes comes in with a girl who is really rattled after she experienced an attack that killed her boyfriend, who she was with, out the back of the Grill making out with. She says she saw her attacker and Liz took her inside to identify them, "Look around let me know if you see anything."

     The girl looks around before she points to the bar where Damon and Lexi are sitting.

     Sheriff Forbes walks over with two other officers and injects Lexi with vervain into her side. Damon sits up suddenly, "What are you doing?!"

      "Thank you for the vervain; now if you'll excuse me." She says and the officers drag Lexi outside while the vampire stumbles in pain from the effects of the vervain.

     Stefan looks up from the pool tables, where he was playing a game with Elena and gasps, "Oh, my God!" He then leaves to go after them.

     Elena was confused as to what was happening, "What is it?" She asks and follows after Stefan, who tries to leave the Grill after them.

      He gets to the door but two officers are blocking the exit, "Can't go out this way." He informs the teenager and Stefan and Elena promptly turn around to find another exit.

     Outside, the officers and the Sheriff are taking Lexi to the police car when Lexi throws the officers off into the cars beside her, feeling the vervain wear off as they didn't give her enough and she's experienced enough vervain in her lifetime. Sheriff Forbes shoots her with wooden bullets, but Lexi is too strong and continues to walk towards her.

     Out of nowhere, Damon appears and stakes her, unbeknownst to him that Stefan saw the whole thing and pulls Elena out of sight from the scene, covering her mouth from the gasp she was about to let out at the sight.

     "Why?" Lexi chokes out, betrayal and hurt in her eyes because she trusted Damon.

      "It's part of the plan." Damon whispers before twisting the stake and Lexi falls to the ground, dead. Damon turns to the Sheriff, "You okay?" He asks her, feigning concern while she lowers her gun.

     Liz nods her head, "Thank you." She tells him, "Get it in the car quickly." She orders him and Damon nods his head and follows her request, all while Stefan and Elena watched.

Hazel wasn't expecting to hear from Elena again for a couple more days; but after multiple texts and calls telling her to get to the Grill urgently, Hazel complied. Whatever it was, it was clearly important and she wouldn't have asked if there was another way.

She reaches the Grill to see Stefan walking away from Elena in anger and horror while her sister chased after him, "Stefan! Stefan!"

Hazel gets out of the car nervously, "What is going on?" She asks, catching their attention.

"He killed her!" Stefan snaps as Hazel approaches him, wondering who he was talking about, "He killed Zach; he killed Tanner; he turned Vicki; I have to kill him!"

Hazel is still unclear as to what was going on but she can tell that something had happened while she was gone, and whatever it was, it wasn't good. She wasn't even aware that Zach Salvatore was dead—she had assumed that he was out of town like everyone else was told to believe, "Who are you talking about?" She asked, "Who killed who?"

"Damon killed Lexi tonight." Elena tells her sadly and Hazel's eyes widened.

"I have to kill him!" Stefan continues to yell and turns to run to his car.

Hazel grabs his arm, "No, you can't do that!" She protests.

Stefan turns to her angrily, "Why are you trying to save him?!" He snaps at her and Hazel's eyes flash with hurt at the way he spoke to her; and the fact that he misinterpreted her intentions, "He's never gonna change! Don't you see that?! He's never gonna change!"

"I'm not trying to save him, I'm trying to save you!" She argues with hurt in her eyes, "You have no idea what this will do to you, Stefan. There's no going back after this!"

Stefan only shakes his head, "Everywhere I've been, pain and death follow; Damon follows me. No more."

He continues to walk to his car, "Stefan, please. Please just—just talk to me. Let me be here for you. Talk to me." Hazel begs him as she follows him, trying to grab his arm to stop him.

"No. You need to stay away from me." He says before leaving, and Hazel begins to cry as she feels her heart break; wondering why Elena asked her to come here to listen to this.