❝i'll be there.❞
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I STILL DON'T KNOW IF I WANT TO GO FULL 50s FOR THE DANCE OR NOT,"

Charlotte hummed, half-listening to Cory as he pilfered through the remains of her burger and fries from the Grill.

"You know, on one hand, I could half-ass it and just do the bare minimum, but if the school is gonna keep having these stupid dances, why not make the most out of them, right?"

"Yeah, totally," Charlotte lifted her hands up, tightening her ponytail on her head as she shifted in their booth that was tucked away in the back corner.

"You are not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

Charlotte sighed, giving Cory an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I just..."

"Can't stop thinking about the fact that you're adopted?"

She winced a little at his blunt words, but nodded nonetheless. "Elena said our birth certificates say Miranda and Grayson, which is whatever, anyone can forge paperwork if they really want to, but,"

She trailed off, and Cory leaned forward, brows furrowing as he urged her on. "But what?"

Charlotte looked down at her hands, eyes tracing nonexistent markings and lines before she looked back up at Cory with something close to shame shining in her eyes. "Is it– is it horrible for me to say that I don't care? Like, I'm upset, obviously, especially with Jenna because she's known the whole time and never said anything, but I don't want to know who my real parents are."

"But Elena wants to, right?"

"Yeah," She nodded, sighing somewhat exasperatedly. "There's some... stuff going on that has to do with our lineage, and if we knew who our biological parents were, it would help us get the answers we need, but I don't... I don't need them that bad. I don't want them. But Elena's so determined to figure it out, she's gotta have all the answers, and I don't know how to tell her that I would rather just pretend like this never happened."

Cory contemplated her words for a moment before giving her a rare, serious look. "I think you should tell Elena to just keep you out of it. It's fine that she wants to know, but she shouldn't drag you along with her."

"Yeah, I know," Charlotte sighed. "I don't want her to get mad at me, though."

"If she gets mad at you, that's her own fault. She needs to accept the fact that you are different people,"

Charlotte gave him a knowing look and he rolled his eyes, but backed off. "I know, Cory. But I'm still worried. A lot can happen that could change my mind, and I just– I don't know."

"Is that Damon?"

Charlotte fronted at his abrupt change of subject, and her face twisted into a frown as she turned in her seat to follow his line of sight. Surely enough, the vampire was walking past rows of tables towards the exit with a less-than pleased look on his face.

"Yeah, it is," She muttered, already standing up. "I'm gonna go see what he's doing, I'll be right back."

"I'm gonna go home, I think, so,"

"Okay, well, I'll see you at the dance, then?"

Cory rolled his eyes, giving her a wry smile. "I'll be the best dressed there, Charlie."

She smiled softly and stepped past him, heading out the same door Damon had gone through a few moments ago.

"Damon?"

She stepped into the brisk night and fought off a shiver, pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands. "Damon, are you still out here?"

Tense, and feeling uneasy, Charlotte startled when her phone started to ring and she pulled it out of her pocket with a grunt. "Hello?"

"Hello, Charlotte,"

Charlotte stopped, her shoulders tightening at the unfamiliar, gravelly voice on the other end of the speaker. "Who... who is this?"

"You hit me with your car,"

Charlotte inhaled sharply and scrambled to grab her car keys out of her pocket, clutching them tightly in her hand.

"Is that a new one?"

She snapped around, looking for the source of the voice.

"You got away from me. You won't next time."

Charlotte's eyes landed on the hooded figure approaching her across the street and she ran to her car, unlocking it and wrenching the door open. She hurriedly hung up the phone and started her car, not wasting a second before driving off. Her eyes darted upwards to the rearview mirror and she watched the man grow smaller in her vision as she drove off.

She didn't feel like she'd escaped, though.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I just don't understand why he's coming after me," Charlotte pushed her hair out of her face, watching Damon scribble something onto a notepad with a deep frown at his desk. "And I don't understand why he'd call me to tell me he was going to kill me."

"You don't really need to understand why he's going to kill you, because it's not going to happen,"

Charlotte raised a brow at him, propping her chin up on her hand. "How do you know that? He already almost did it once,"

"But he didn't," Damon's eyes flashed darkly at the reminder of her car accident. "Because I was there. So, presumably, I'll be there the next time to stop it, too. And this time, I'll get rid of him, too. Easy peasy."

"That doesn't sound easy peasy, Damon," Charlotte huffed, her eyes falling to the fabric of the couch she was laying on. "We don't even know what he looks like, or like, literally anything about him except for the fact that he's trying to kill me."

"That's all I need to know to not like him," Damon shrugs, giving her a flat look that she returns. "Look, sunshine, you don't need to worry a single hair on your pretty head about it, okay? I'll handle it."

Charlotte sighed and dropped her hand from her chin, letting her head fall onto a pillow. "Okay, Damon. But if there's anything I can do to help, you'll tell me, right?"

"You will be my first call,"

She smiled up at him and he mirrored it with a degree of his signature smirk still in place. For a moment, they were suspended in time, locked onto each other's gazes and content with letting the rest of the world fade away, but then reality came back.

Charlotte tensed, her smile dropping when she saw Stefan approaching.

"Charlotte,"

Quickly, she slid off the couch and grabbed her bag, giving Damon a short look of annoyance that he mirrored. "I'm gonna go. I'll talk to you later, Damon."

She brushed past Stefan, barely skimming his arm as he turned towards her, an apology surely on the tip of his tongue despite her desire to not hear it.

Damon snorted and shook his head as his brother's gaze turned to its familiar shade of pitiful. "Wow, she does not like you."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"Is that your dress, Charlie? It's cute,"

The brunette looked up from where she'd draped her dress and gloves over her arm, and she gave Jenna a small, terse smile as Elena tensed beside her. "Thanks, Jenna,"

There was a tense pause between the three girls before Jenna spoke again. "I spoke to the insurance company, the car's totaled. You can keep using mine for now,"

Charlotte nodded, giving her another short smile before she turned around, grabbing her other glove off the table. Beside her, Elena's hands clenched around the back of one of the table chairs, and she grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, if only to have something else to do with herself.

"So, you're coming to the dance?"

"Alaric asked me to help chaperone,"

Elena nodded and brought the apple up to her mouth, but didn't take a bite. She took a deep breath and spun around to face Jenna, her brows furrowed irritatedly. "Why didn't you tell me, Jenna?"

The small smile on Jenna's face fell and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Your mom was gonna do it eventually. I never thought I'd have to,"

"If my mom were here right now, and I asked, she'd tell me the truth."

Charlotte looked at her sister, a stern gleam in her eyes. "Elena,"

Elena glanced in her direction, but quickly looked back to Jenna, who easily conceded with a sigh.

"Your dad was about to leave the office one night when this girl showed up. She was sixteen, a runaway, and about to give birth."

Charlotte tensed, and she angrily pulled at the tangled string hanging off her dress.

"He helped her give birth, and he gave her a place to stay, but a few days later, she disappeared and there you were. Your parents were trying so hard to have a baby, and it just wasn't happening." Jenna shook her head, a small smile on her red lips. "All Miranda ever wanted was to be a mom."

Elena shook her head confusedly. "Well, why were our parents' names on the birth certificate?"

"Your dad was a doctor, Elena," Jenna shrugged. "He took care of it. They didn't want to lose either of you, so they kept it quiet. Told as few people as possible, but if anyone ever wanted proof, they had documentation."

Elena blinked rapidly, her face one of disbelief. "What else do you know about her? The girl."

"Elena, stop," Charlotte said her name again, giving her twin a sharp glare when she looked her way.

"Just her name. Isobel."

Charlotte huffed and finally got the string off the hem of her dress, and she quickly yanked her bag off the table, heading for the stairs. She stalked past Elena, who hurried up the stairs after her.

"Charlie,"

Charlotte pushed her bedroom door open and threw her bag on the floor, and draped her dress and gloves on the end of her bed.

"Charlie, just wait," Elena followed her, pushing the door shut behind her. "What's wrong with you? Why were you being like that in the kitchen?"

"I told you last night that I didn't want to know anything about our biological parents, and you just pulled that while I was standing right there,"

"What's so wrong with knowing the truth about this stuff?"

Charlotte huffed, rolling her eyes at her sister's obtuseness. "There's nothing wrong with it, Elena, you can do whatever you want, I just don't want any part of it."

She shifted her weight on her feet, shaking her head. "You heard Jenna in there, alright? The woman that gave birth to us was not our mother. She was a sixteen year old runaway who wanted nothing to do with her children, and has made no effort in the seventeen years we've been alive to come find us. As far as I'm concerned, our parents are dead. I don't want anything to do with whoever Isobel is."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Charlotte let out a tired sigh as she dropped her arms, letting the blood flow back into her hands for the millionth time as she pinned her hair up. She turned, looking at the few stray curls sitting out of the messy updo and took the remaining bobby pins out of her mouth before walking out of the bathroom into Elena's room.

"Hey, Elena, do you think my hair looks fine like this or should I make it neater?"

Elena looked over her shoulder from where she was grabbing her scarf out of her closet and gave her sister a once over before shrugging. "I think it looks fine, Charlie,"

"Good, because my arms are tired," Charlotte huffed and turned on her heel, her dress swaying with the motion. Her eyes fell to the small compass on Elena's bed, and her brows furrowed. "Hey, uh, is Stefan here?"

Elena shook her head, going over to Charlotte. "I don't think so, why?"

"This compass is going crazy?"

"What?" Elena snatched the compass up, a shaky breath leaving her. She dropped the compass back on the bed and reached for her phone, quickly dialing Stefan's number. "Charlotte, come with me."

"Elena, what's wrong?"

"I need to make sure Stefan's here,"

Charlotte's eyes widened in realization and she wrapped her hand around Elena's arm, letting Elena lead them down the stairs.

Elena let out a relieved sigh when the phone picked up, and she glanced back to make sure Charlotte was paying attention to their surroundings still. "Where is he?"

She let out another sigh, holding her hand to her forehead as she and Charlotte stopped in the living room. "Oh, thank God. This compass was spinning, and Charlie thought Stefan was here, but we weren't sure,"

Elena pulled her phone away from her ear and Charlotte dropped her wrist, holding a hand to her racing heart. "Jesus, I– Elena watch out!"

Elena let out a scream when Charlotte pushed her backwards, out of the vampire's arms as he bared his teeth at her throat. Before he could sink his teeth into her neck, he was ripped off of her, and she stumbled backwards into Elena's arms, clutching onto her as she tried to regain her breath.

Charlotte flinched as the vampire disappeared in a blur, the front door slamming shut in his wake.

Stefan rushed over to them, his eyes running over them both rapidly. "Are you okay?"

Charlotte nodded and stepped away from Elena, letting her sister find her comfort in her boyfriend while she plopped down on one of the stairs.

She brought her hand up to her neck, rubbing it uncomfortably as she listened to Stefan tell Elena that he needed to call Damon.

Relief poured through her at the thought of Damon coming, and she kept her hands wrapped around her neck in a borderline chokehold, relishing in the unbroken skin, and the way that she felt her pulse beating in her neck. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's note; heyyyy,,,, honestly might double update this so keep an eye out ? it just depends on if i don't get distracted tonight 

 edited and published; 10.6.22. 

- liz