❝love lost❞
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

THE DOOR SWINGS OPEN, REVEALING A SMILING DAMON THAT WELCOMES THEM INTO THE HOUSE WITH A SWEEP OF HIS HAND. Charlotte and Elena walk past him, the younger of the two looking around.

"Is Stefan here? He called," She shifts, pulling the strap of her bag up on her shoulder. "He said it was important."

"Right this way," Damon gestures to the living room and they walk towards it, Charlotte silent as her eyes immediately land on the person standing beside Stefan.

Elena recognizes her a second after Charlotte, and her eyes narrow. "You,"

Rose immediately holds her hands up in surrender, looking between the twins warily.

Stefan clears his throat, gesturing for them to sit down. "She has information for us."

"You have to understand I only know what I've picked up over the years, and I don't know what's true and what's not true. It's the problem with all this vampire crap, but Klaus– I know he's real."

"Who is he?" Elena asks.

"He's one of the Originals, he's a legend," Damon answers, leaning against the doorway a few feet away.

"From the first generation of vampires,"

Elena's brows furrow in recollection. "Like Elijah?"

"No, Elijah was the Easter bunny compared to Klaus," Rose shakes her head, her voice grave. "He's a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal."

"Klaus is known to be the oldest," Stefan continues, making Elena nod slowly.

"Okay, so you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after me and Charlotte?"

"Yes."

"No."

The twins look between Rose and Stefan with a deadpan stare.

Damon steps forward, wincing slightly. "What they're saying is– I mean, if what she's saying is true–"

"Which it is,"

"And you're not saying it so I don't kill you,"

"Which I'm not,"

Damon sighs, nodding. "Then we're looking at a solid maybe."

Stefan shakes his head, giving Elena a firm look. "Look, Elijah's dead, right? So no one else even knows that you two exist."

Rose holds up a finger. "Not that you know of,"

Damon throws her a glare. "That's not helping,"

"Look, I've never even met anyone who's laid eyes on him. I mean, we're talking centuries of truth mixed with fiction. We don't know if he's real. For all we know, he could just be some sort of stupid bedtime story."

Rose immediately shakes her head at Stefan's attempt at denial. "He's real and he doesn't give up. If he wants something, he gets it. If you're not afraid of Klaus, then you're an idiot."

Damon rolls his eyes at her dramatics. "Alright, we're shaking. You made your point."

Charlotte and Elena share an exasperated look as they stand, catching the three vampires' attention.

"Where are you going?"

"School," They say in unison. "We're late."

Stefan steps forward, looking between them. "Let me grab my stuff, I'll go with you,"

Elena holds up a hand, already turning away from him to follow a morose Charlotte to the door. "It's okay, I know where it is."

The vampires watch as the twins leave without another word, their cool dismissal setting off different reactions in each of them.

Damon clears his throat, attempting to recover from Charlotte's odd demeanor. He looks towards Rose, smirking. "They're in denial,"

Stefan rolls his eyes, still looking in the direction Elena had gone in. "Shut up, Damon."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"Just tell everyone I wasn't feeling good and I made Charlotte drive me home," Elena looks at Caroline as the girl follows the twins through the woods towards the tomb, looking between them warily.

"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. I'm a terrible liar,"

"And keep Stefan busy. I don't want him to know what I'm up to,"

Caroline groans, throwing her head back. "I'm even worse at duplicity, and you know this!"

Charlotte rolls her eyes, giving Caroline a look. "Then ask Cory for help. He's great at lying,"

Caroline pursed her lips in a pout. "He doesn't like me, though,"

Charlotte shrugs a shoulder, humming in agreement.

"You managed to keep me occupied when Katherine paid Stefan a visit," Elena reminds her friend, attempting to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"Yeah, because she threatened me. Not that I'm saying you should use that as a tactic, it's... Stefan's gonna see right through me."

Elena sighs, turning to look at Caroline. "Caroline, as my friend, do you promise or not?"

The blonde groans quietly, nodding after a second. "You had to break out the girlfriend code. Okay. I promise,"

"Okay,"

"Thank you,"

Caroline nods, looking between the twins. "Why don't you want Stefan and Damon to know?"

"Because," Elena starts hesitantly, looking at her sister at the mention of Damon, only to see the same flat look that's been occupying her face for the past two days. "They would never be okay with us doing this."

Caroline has nothing to say to that, and Charlotte grows impatient quickly, turning to head down the tomb stairs with no more fanfare, coming to a stop before the thick slab of stone.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, I'm sure. She's the only one who knows the truth about Klaus. The only one who can tell us how to stop him."

"But you're asking for the truth from someone who's probably never given it. Are you sure about this?"

"I'd rather try to get the truth out of her than sit around and just wait for Klaus to show up." Charlotte says, gesturing to the tomb door.

Caroline sighs quietly but does as requested, using her inhuman strength to push the tomb door out of the way.

The twins look down the dim path of the tomb, sharing a look.

"Katherine?"

Elena looks over her shoulder at her friend. "We'll be okay from here,"

A rock skittering across the ground stops Caroline from verbally denying her claim, and they all turn to watch as Katherine slowly approaches them, stopping at the entrance where she can no longer pass.

"Hello, Elena. Charlotte. You come to watch me wither away?" The vampire's eyes drift past her doppelgängers to the blonde. "Goodbye, Caroline."

Elena gives her a pleading look, nodding reassuringly. "As long as we stay on this side of the door, she can't hurt us."

Caroline looks like she wants to argue again, but she stifles it and nods, disappearing a moment later.

"So," Katherine clears her hoarse throat uselessly, looking at the two girls. "Do the Salvatores know you're here?"

Elena pulls her bag off her shoulder, dropping it to the dirt floor beneath their feet. "I brought you something,"

Katherine raises an eyebrow. "You came to bribe me? What is it that you want?"

"We want to know about Klaus."

Something amused flashes in Katherine's eyes, but it's dimmed. Whether it's by the exhaustion she's experiencing from her slow decay in the tomb or by something else, Charlotte isn't quite sure yet.

The vampire hums, ducking her head in a nod. "You've been busy,"

"We have this," Charlotte says, pulling the Petrova bloodline book Damon had taken from Isobel's office for her out of her bag. "It's the Petrova family history– I've read it all, actually. It says in here that your family line ended with you, but obviously that's not true."

Katherine snorts a tired, but still smug laugh. "You think that if you brought me some family keepsake that I'd open up?"

"We also brought this," Elena says flatly, pulling a plastic bottle filled with blood out of her bag, holding it up for Katherine to see.

The vampire rushes over to the entrance of the tomb, halting a few inches away from them with a snarl at the invisible barrier put between them.

"You don't look so good," Elena tilts her head, pursing her lips in a mocking pout. "How long before your body shuts down? 10, 20 years? It must be painful to desiccate and mummify. I can't even imagine."

Katherine slowly lowers herself to the floor, making the twins do the same, the three of them getting on the same level for the time-being.

Elena pulls out a small, plastic cup she'd brought, pouring just enough blood in it to cover the bottom and nothing more. She uses a stick to push the cup through the barrier into the tomb, and Katherine is quick to snatch it up and drink it, sighing in relief when some of the throbbing pain in her body dulls just a bit.

"You have the Petrova fire," Katherine says, her lifeless eyes starting to regain a little more emotion. She pointedly doesn't look at Charlotte, but the older twin doesn't care. She's happy to let Elena take the lead on this, if only to satisfy her little sister's curiosity. It doesn't matter much to Charlotte in the grand scheme of things, but she won't let Elena do it alone. Not after what their differences regarding Isobel did to them.

"More blood?"

Katherine sets the cup down and Elena takes it back, holding it pointedly when Katherine stays silent.

The vampire sighs, leaning against the wall of the tomb. "It's a long story, Klaus and I. It goes all the way back to England, 1492, after I left Bulgaria. Or was thrown out."

Elena indulgently gives her more blood. "Thrown out?"

"My family, your true ancestors, they disowned me. My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock," She widens her eyes dramatically before rolling them. "The shame."

"It was kept secret?"

Katherine nods, slowly relishing in the blood as she sipped at it. "My baby was given away. I was banished to England and I had to learn to adjust. So, I quickly became English. It was there that I caught the eye of a nobleman named Klaus. I was taken with him at first, until I found out what he was and what he wanted from me. And then I ran like hell."

Charlotte's brows furrowed. "So, what did he want?"

"The same thing that he'll want from you. He wants to break the curse,"

Realization dawns on the twins, recalling Rose's words, the damning evidence that seemed to hang over them.

"By sacrificing the Petrova doppelgänger," Elena says, glancing at her sister.

Katherine nods, giving her doppelgängers a wry smile. "He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from my body."

Elena takes the cup from Katherine again, pouring a bit more blood in a quick exchange. "What does the Petrova bloodline have to do with Klaus?"

"It's really tedious, but,"

She finishes off the rest of the blood, crushing the cup in her hand lazily, feeling more like herself than she has in days. "The curse was bound by the sacrifice of Petrova blood. Witches are crafty with their spells. The doppelgänger was created as a way to be able to undo the spell. Once the doppelgänger reappeared, the curse can be broken."

Elena leans forward, entranced in the new information. "So, you ran before he killed you?"

"Something like that," Katherine shrugs. "Someone tried to help me escape. Gave me refuge in his house where he lived with a friend– they were both vampires. I told her who I was, proved it with the moonstone I'd stolen from Klaus, thinking she'd help me. But she told some tale about how Klaus isn't someone you can run and hide from, and she locked me in a room, saying she was going to march me right into Klaus's arms again and beg for her own forgiveness regarding her involvement with the entire mess."

"It was Rose and Trevor," Charlotte realizes, not needing Katherine's nod to confirm it. It all sounded too similar to what the vampires had talked about when they were waiting for Elijah to show up. Begging for forgiveness, running for a long time, never able to truly live for fear of Klaus finding them and exacting his revenge. Ironic how hard they fought, only to lose in the end.

"She never ended up taking you back to Klaus, did she?" Elena asks.

"No," Katherine shook her head. "But not because she had a change of heart. I was young and terrified, and suddenly faced with the thought of mortality. I'd had everything taken away from me, and the second I found out that my destiny was to die, I figured I might as well go on my own terms. Rose found me, though, and healed me with some of her blood. Refused to let me die because she was so scared of Klaus. But I wasn't going to let Klaus kill me after all of that,"

Charlotte watches the woman's face transform with centuries of memories playing in her head. A flash of grief here and there, coupled with a passive amusement that can only come from detachment.

"You killed yourself," Charlotte says quietly, just as Elena exclaims the same thing in disbelief. "That's how you turned."

Katherine shrugs, but her eyes linger on Charlotte, dropping down to her scarred arms. "Klaus needed a human doppelgänger. As a vampire, I was no longer any use to him."

"But it didn't work," Elena says fiercely, an odd defensiveness straightening out her shoulders. "You didn't really escape, you've been running from Klaus ever since."

"I underestimated his spirit for vengeance," Katherine concedes. "But living in a suitcase is better than dying so you can have your blood spilled over some silly little rock."

Elena shifts uncomfortably, but Charlotte doesn't move from where her eyes are locked on Katherine.

"What's wrong?" Katherine smirks, tilting her head. "Afraid I'm right? You don't want to die? There's another way out,"

The vampire digs into the skin of her wrist with her nail, letting blood trail out of the wound. "Better hurry. Your opportunity is going, going, going... and gone."

Elena looks horrified at the sight of the healing wound, while Charlotte just watches her wipe the blood away from her skin, revealing the untouched area in its wake.

"I made the other choice."

"Rose and Trevor spent the last 500 years running because you used them. Trevor just got killed."

Katherine hums, eyes narrowing in thought. "I never thought he would last that long,"

"You don't even care that you ruined their lives," Elena shakes her head, mystified at Katherine's cold demeanor.

"I was looking out for myself, Elena. I will always look out for myself," Katherine's gaze shifts to Charlotte as she picks up the Petrova book the older twin had given her. "If you're smart, you'll do the same."

Elena seems to catch on to the little looks Katherine's sending Charlotte's way, and she shifts, appearing protective before her sister. "So, how much of your little story is true?"

"I have no reason to lie, Elena," Katherine flips through one of the pages of the books, eyes roaming the old writing. "I have no reason to do anything but sit here and read, and rot."

"Okay, assuming it's even partially true, that's the reason why you came back, isn't it? Because you wanted to be the one to hand us over to Klaus."

"500 years on the run, I figured maybe he'd be willing to strike a deal," Katherine shrugged. "Although, I didn't know there were two of you. That was a nice little surprise that Isobel managed to keep from me. Nonetheless, it was double the insurance."

Charlotte bites her tongue, watching Elena's face twist with irritation.

"You got Mason Lockwood to find you the moonstone,"

"Right again,"

"What else do you need to break the curse?"

Katherine smirks at Elena's interrogation. "Look who's getting smarter," Her eyes move to Charlotte again. "You, on the other hand, couldn't care less."

"I don't care about anything you have to say," Charlotte responds immediately, though there's no doubt in her words. She's been quieter than usual these past few days, and it seems like every time she opens her mouth it's for some biting remark, so unlike her.

"So feisty," Katherine taunts, pursing her lips. "But why the sudden change in heart, huh? As far as I can tell, you're the smartest out of all of them. What made you give up, Charlie?"

"It's not just a doppelgänger or the moonstone, is it?" Elena cuts in, sending a brief, concerned look in her sister's direction before refocusing on Katherine. "Otherwise, there'd be no reason to trigger Tyler Lockwood's werewolf curse."

"Witches and their spells," Katherine shakes her head. "So many ingredients, so many people to sacrifice."

"So, you need a werewolf?"

"Believe it or not, they're hard to come by."

"What else?"

Katherine waves a hand vaguely. "A witch to do the spell. Mine bailed, but Bonnie will do just fine."

"What else?"

"A vampire."

Elena's eyes flash. "Caroline."

Katherine nods as she gets up, clutching the Petrova book to her chest. "It could've been anyone, I suppose, but I like the poetry of Caroline."

"So, you were gonna just hand us all over to be killed?"

Katherine gives her a smile, not a bit of unease in her as she turns away. "Better you die than I,"

The twins watch her disappear down into the tomb again, leaving them in a heavy silence that has Elena breathing out harshly.

Elena turns to look at Charlotte, finding her staring into the empty space Katherine left with a dazed, far-away look in her eyes. "Charlie?"

She laid a hand on her sister's knee, squeezing it lightly. "Charlotte?"

Charlotte hums in response and Elena sighs, grabbing the near-empty bottle of blood and stuffing it back into her bag.

"Come on, Charlie, let's go home," Elena stands, gently grabbing Charlotte's hands in her own and pulling her to her feet. She steadies her sister, searching her face for anything hopeful. That familiar gleam that means she wants to find a solution to the problem, that means she'll fix it all and the nightmare will be over.

She finds nothing, and looks away, her stomach turning.

Before she can lead them out of the tomb, Stefan appears before them, startling her.

"Elena,"

"Stefan, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," He looks between the twins, face twisted unhappily.

"Caroline told you,"

Stefan scoffs lightly. "No, she kept your secret, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what was that important that you'd have to keep it from me."

Elena rolls her eyes. "I knew that you'd stop me, and I had to do this. We had to do this."

Stefan grabs her arms gently, worry flashing in his green eyes. "Listen to me, whatever she said to you is a lie. Do not listen to her. She's a liar."

"What if she isn't?" Elena shakes her head, an empty huff of a laugh leaving her. "You didn't hear what she said."

"You don't have to worry, I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. Either of you," He says pointedly, looking at Charlotte.

"That's the problem. You won't, but you'll die trying. How's that any better?"

Katherine's voice comes from behind them again, and Charlotte immediately turns to face her.

"There's nothing you can do, Stefan. I haven't even told you the best part of the story."

"Katherine–"

"After I turned, I went home, to Bulgaria. I wanted to be reunited with my family, and beg for their forgiveness. But when I got there, it was nothing but carnage. He killed them, my entire family. Just to get back at me for running. Whatever you do to escape Klaus, he will get his vengeance on your friends, your family, and anyone that you've ever loved."

Stefan looks away from Katherine to Elena. "No, look at me. Do not listen to her, okay?"

Katherine smirks. "Always the protector, but even you must realize that she's doomed. There's nothing you can do to stop it, unless of course, you have this," She holds up the moonstone, shaking it tauntingly.

"Oh, no," Stefan scoffs, shaking his head at her. "There it is. It's the ultimate lie, isn't it? You spun this whole thing so that we would have to get the stone from you, didn't you?"

"I didn't spin anything, Stefan. It's the truth."

"No, let me guess. You want to trade that stone for your freedom, you manipulative, psychotic bitch."

Katherine gives him an amused, incredulous look. "My freedom? That's where you're wrong, Stefan. I don't want my freedom, because when Klaus shows up to kill us all, and he will, I'll be in the tomb, where no vampire will enter because they can't get out. I'll be the safest psychotic bitch in town."

Katherine turns and leaves once more, leaving the three of them alone, Stefan at a loss for the honesty in her words.

Elena shakes her head, grabbing Charlotte's hand again, pulling her past Stefan, leading them out of the tomb.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A knock on the door makes Damon look away from Rose, his brows furrowing as he stands up immediately, leaving the woman on the couch by herself.

He walks to the front door, swinging it open to find Charlotte standing before him. Relief swoops through him in a tidal wave, bringing his wariness about her behavior this morning to a low.

"Sunshine! Come on in. Rose and I were just having a nightcap, you are more than welcome to join."

Charlotte follows Damon into the house, her eyes immediately skipping past the man to look at Rose on the couch, looking sheepish as she offers Charlotte a small smile and a wave in greeting.

Without giving her any sort of acknowledgment, Charlotte turns to look at Damon again. "I think my phone fell out of my pocket this morning. I can't find it anywhere."

Damon's smile twitches, faltering slightly at her indifferent demeanor and deadpan look. "Well, you're free to look anywhere you want."

Charlotte nods and turns away, walking to the couch she and Elena had sat on this morning, and she stuffs her hand in between the cushions, frowning when she doesn't feel the hard shell of her phone.

"So, how was school?"

Charlotte looks up from the couch at Damon, raising a brow. "I didn't go."

He frowns quickly, shaking his head confusedly. "I thought you and Elena went straight there after you left this morning,"

She shakes her head, moving from the cushions to look behind the pillows. She lets out a sigh of relief when she sees it face down behind a throw pillow, grabbing it with a quiet grunt of exertion. "Nope."

Damon spares an odd look at Rose like he's looking to find sympathy for Charlotte's standoffish behavior, but Rose is too unfamiliar with the girl to see anything wrong with it. "Uh... alright. What did you do today, then?"

"Elena and I went to see Katherine."

Damon's glass thunks on the table pointedly, his face shifting into something dark and serious. "What? Why on earth would you do that?"

"Because I wanted to hear her side of the story. I didn't want our only source of information to be the woman who kidnapped me and Elena, so we did our own research."

Rose's face shifts, flashing with offense before she realizes she has no room to be offended at the truth Charlotte's thrown in her face.

Damon, taken off-guard completely, walks towards her. "Katherine is in the tomb for a reason. She's a manipulative, lying little bitch. Nothing she says can be trusted,"

"Funny, Stefan said the exact same thing," She notes, pursing her lips.

"Please tell me you didn't believe any of the nonsense she said to you,"

"I believed all of it, Damon."

"Jesus, Charlotte, why would you go to her? She's going to use you to get out of the tomb somehow. That's how she works! Nothing comes without a price,"

"That's why Elena and I didn't give her an option to ask for anything," Charlotte shakes her head, pocketing her phone as Rose looks between them, eyes bouncing back and forth like she's watching a tennis match. "At the end of the day, she's still locked in the tomb, and my sister and I know more about this Klaus guy, and that's all that matters."

"No, your safety is what matters. And if you're running off, paying secret visits to Katherine when no one knows where you are, that is a recipe for disaster. We have no idea when this Klaus guy could be showing up, and you think it's smart to go off on your own?"

Charlotte gives him an incredulous look, throwing her hands up. "We're fine, Damon, it was one time. Why are you so mad about this? It's better for us to have more information, thanks to what we did."

"It's not your job to do that, though,"

Confusion floods Charlotte's face. "What?"

"You shouldn't have to worry about any of this stuff, but you do because of Stefan and I, alright? We dragged you two into this mess and now it's our job to make sure you stay safe. You're human, Charlotte. Doesn't matter who you look like at the end of the day, you're just human. It's already hard enough to worry about you on a normal day, you can't do this when your life is on the line."

Charlotte looks at Damon for a moment, silence suspended in the air between them so thick that even Rose watches with bated breath. When she finally speaks, her voice is thick like she's choking down all of the emotions she's been stifling for the past few days since that night in her room with the very vampire standing before her.

"I'm sorry that it is such a burden for you to care about me, Damon, but I'm not going to stand here and let you make me feel stupid for doing something anyone with common sense would do. Elena and I are in danger because of Klaus, because we are Katherine's doppelgängers. Why wouldn't we go straight to the source, instead of following the word of some random vampire who kidnapped us?!"

"Charlotte–"

"I understand you're a big, bad vampire who can save his own life, and you don't need anyone, because you're better than all of us lousy humans, but some of us aren't as lucky. My humanity is all that I have, it is the only thing that keeps me alive, and it's not fair of you to stand here and make me feel like it's a burden. I never asked you to care about me, I never asked you to protect me or my sister, in fact, I was doing that just fine before you and Stefan came along."

A lone tear falls down her cheek, like it was the only one that fought the war against her stubbornness and won. "Just because I'm human doesn't mean that I'm useless. I would've thought you'd know that by now, considering how many times I've saved your life."

Damon sighs, his anger burning out to nothing in the wake of her tears. "No, Charlotte, come on, that's not what I–"

"Then what did you mean? What feeling, exactly, are you blaming me for this time?"

"I–"

"What's stopping you from being honest, Damon? I mean, you could always just tell me how you feel and then make me forget all of it, right?"

Shock and clear panic flashes through his bright eyes at her words and he starts to question what she's talking about before he's cut off by Rose.

"I hate to interrupt this... conversation," She grimaces when they both fix her with sharp looks. "But Slater is calling me."

"Who is Slater?"

Damon's focus quickly shifts from Charlotte to Rose, gesturing towards her phone ringing in her hand. "Answer it!"

Rose quickly does putting the phone on speaker. "Slater? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I took off, I'm sorry. I was freaked,"

"No, I'm sorry to involve you,"

The man on the other line seems to dismiss her apologies, moving quickly to the next subject. "Look, I want no part in any of this, but I did some digging."

Rose looks up at Damon and Charlotte, whose eyes are locked on the phone like she can see Slater through the device. "Okay. What did you find?"

"You can destroy the curse, but you need the moonstone."

Charlotte's eyes widen and she looks at Damon, seeing the vampire sporting a similar look of surprise.

"How? What do you mean?" Rose shakes her head. "I don't follow."

"Can your friend get the moonstone? I need it,"

Rose looks up at Damon again, and he nods quickly, making a gesture with his hand for her to continue.

"Yes, he can get it. What next?"

"You need a witch. Get the moonstone, a witch should be able to figure out the rest. Good luck, Rose."

The call ends abruptly and the three of them are quiet for a moment before Charlotte sighs harshly. "Who was that, and why was he talking about the curse and the moonstone?"

"That was my friend, Slater. We went to talk to him today, but we were attacked."

Damon wipes a hand over his chin, looking at Charlotte. "We were trying to figure out if he knew anything about the curse, or about Klaus, that way we could figure something out to keep you and Elena out of trouble."

Charlotte narrows her eyes, looking at Damon accusingly. "So, everything you were just yelling at me for doing... you were also doing today?"

"No, Charlotte, listen–"

"No, I'm actually going to go home. I'm sure I'll see you sooner rather than later. I hope I don't make you worry too much in the meantime, since it's such an issue for you."

Damon winces, quickly following after Charlotte as she storms out the front door into the starry night. "Charlotte, come on! I didn't mean for it to come across like that, okay? I don't– you're not a burden, for God's sake, you're my friend. I like caring about you, you're–"

"Goodbye, Damon!"

He reaches for her, groaning in frustration when she quickly snatches her arm from his grasp. "Would you stop interrupting me? Jesus, Charlotte, I'm trying to apologize,"

She spins around just before she opens her car door, facing him with a glare that has him stopping in his tracks a foot away from her. "No, actually, I don't want to hear your apology because I don't care about what you're apologizing for. I don't want to hear you apologize for anything except for what you did the other night,"

Confusion twists at his features for a moment and he shakes his head. "What? What are you talking about?"

She inhales sharply, brown eyes growing glassy with tears again. "You– you told me... you told me that, and then you– you took it away," She grits her teeth, jabbing her finger into his chest, watching his face contort in realization. "You thought you took it away, but you didn't, and I– I remember. I remember what you said to me, and how you didn't let me get a word in. And then you just left me. So I don't give a damn about interrupting your bullshit apologies, Damon. Not right now,"

"Charlotte, how... you're not supposed to remember that," Damon breathes the words out, nearly inaudible over the sound of crickets chirping and insects buzzing in the trees surrounding them.

"I had Elena's necklace," She tells him, voice breaking as her tears finally spill over onto her cheeks. "I had that stupid necklace! And I remember everything you said, and I remember you not letting me say anything back to you!"

Damon steps forward, looking down at her with wide eyes, filled with a myriad of emotions that swirl around in him, making him dizzy. "Charlotte, I'm sorry,"

"Don't," She shakes her head, taking a step back from him. "Don't apologize if you don't mean it."

"I do, I do mean it, I promise,"

She scoffs wetly. "Are you sorry because your compulsion didn't work, or because you told me in the first place?"

He doesn't answer her. He can't.

"Right," She nods, throwing her hands up. "You don't even know, because you hate what you feel for me so much."

"No, I–"

"No, you listen to me, Damon," She cuts him off, voice stern despite the tears in it. "Either figure out how to love me without hating me for it, or take it away for real this time."

Damon's eyes widen and he immediately shakes his head. "Charlotte, I can't–"

"What, you can't compel me now?" He quickly falls silent again and she nods, turning to open her car. "I know that we could have something really great, Damon. But right now, I just don't trust you not to–"

She stops abruptly, looking away from him as her anger dies out, giving way to the hurt and sadness that's woven into her bones. "I just don't trust you."

Damon stands, struck speechless, watching her drive off until her taillights are specks of red in the night. The pit in his stomach seems cavernous in her wake, and he wonders hopelessly, regrettably, if this is how Charlotte had felt when he left her the other night, thinking he'd successfully run away from yet another truth he couldn't face.

He should've known, really, that it would be Charlotte of all people he couldn't do that with.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's note; obviously rose and damon can't hook up, so instead you guys get a devastating charmon scene 

edited and published; 7.7.24.

- liz