I walk up the porch freezing my ass off but thankfully I have coffee. I hear Elena leaving a voice mail on Bonnie's phone again. Bonnie hasn't picked up any of our calls since her Grams died. I think she blames us because she died because she used all that power. She hangs up the phone and I walk over to her.
"What are you doing out here Lena? It's freezing." I frown.
"Thinking...writing." she gestures to the journal on her lap. "The funeral for Bonnie's grandma, just brought up a lot about Mom and Dad."
"I know, it made me remember a lot of things I would like to forget." I sigh sitting down next to her. She wraps her arm around me, and steals my coffee. "Hey!"
She takes a sip then hands it back to me, "What? I'm cold too." she pouts. I laugh and take a long sip of my coffee.
"Hey, guys. Whatca doing out here, it's pretty cold." Jenna smiles, walking up to us.
"That's exactly what I asked her." I shrug.
"Hey, I was wondering...you said you were going to do some digging about the adoption. So did you..........dig?" Elena questions.
Jenna thinks for a moment, probably deciding if she wants to share with us. "We don't have all day, Jenna." I say and she glares at me.
"Why don't you come inside?" she says not really asking. She walks inside and Elena gets up to follow but I stay seated.
"What's wrong?" Elena frowns.
"I just......I don't know if I want to find out more about her, Isobel. I don't want to start thinking she's is my Mom and not, you know, Mom." I admit.
Elena gives me a sad smile, "She will never be our Mom, Aria. She's the woman that gave birth to us at only 16 and then left. Don't worry about forgetting Mom, you won't. It's pretty impossible, Mom was amazing."
"Alright." I get up and give Elena a little smile. "Let's go find out more about this Isobel women." Elena and I head inside and to the kitchen where Jenna is sitting down on the table with her laptop.
"Your Dad kept everything from his medical practice, records, logs, old appointment books." Jenna holds up an old appointment book. "I found an entry, from the night you two were born. A patient and a birth date. Isobel Peterson."
I snort, "That is the most fake last name ever. Do you know how many people's last names are Peterson?"
"That's what I was thinking, but the first name is most likely right. But where did she get Peterson? A classmate? Best friend? So....I binged it. I searched for all the Peterson's in this area born the same year as Isobel. Found three, two men and a women. Trudy who lived in Groove Hill, Virginia."
"That's not far from here." I smirk, we can go meet this lady then.
"Well...watch this." Jenna types some stuff into the search engine and up comes Isobel's class year book. Elena and I spot her right away looking sassy in a cheer outfit. Like Elena...
"Isobel, she was a cheerleader." Elena smiles causing to Jenna and I to laugh.
"You know Trudy still lives there, this is her address." Jenna hands Elena the sticky note.
"What about Isobel?" I question.
"I couldn't find anything about her." Jenna frowns. Huh, with our luck she's probably some CIA agent. "Listen there's something else, Mr.Saltzmen...Ric, his wife was from around here and her name was also Isobel."
"So Ric could be my Dad, eew." I frown but Elena hears something else.
"Wait? Was? As in?" Elena trails off
"She died." Jenna states. Elena looks up at me and I shrug. We don't know she was our birth mother Isobel. But if she was.........oh, that sucks.
---------
"Alaric's wife, might have been your mother?" Stefan frowns, having the same reaction I did.
"Same reaction I had, Stef." I smirk patting his back. He sighs and rolls his eyes at me. How rude!
"It can't be true, right? I mean the coincidence alone is just....crazy." Elena sighs, turning around and holding up the note. "We have the address for her friend, Trudy."
"You want to talk to her?" Stefan asks.
"We." I correct him, glaring.
"I don't know, I..... I don't know." Elena repeats. "If it's true and they are the same person that means our birth mother is dead. And I don't know about Aria but I don't think I can handle that." she looks down at the ground. What does she think? That I don't care she's dead? I'm not some heartless bitch. Well...
"Did Jenna tell you two anything about Alaric's wife?" Stefan questions. "How she died?"
I shake my head, "Just that she was killed and the case was never solved." Stefan looks down at the floor guilty.
"You knew that already?" Elena asks not very happy.
"The night at the school when he attacked me, he told me some things about her death..." Stefan trails off. Oh and if you're wondering about the whole Alaric attacking Stefan thing, let me sum it up for ya. Alaric is some really bad vampire hunter and found out about Damon and Stefan. Tried to kill Stefan but it was an epic fail.
"Well?" I demand, impatient.
"No, it's not possible the coincidence is too much. Listen if you two, do decide to go to Isobel's friend, I'll go with you. Yeah?" Stefan takes Elena's hands in his. Eew, even just that little show of affection makes me want to barf.
"I just don't know what we're going to do yet." Elena sighs. Elena reaches up and wraps her arms around him. Stefan wraps his arms around her, rubbing her back.
"Eew, no guys. Not with your sister in the room Lena." I say loudly. Elena rolls her eyes and pulls away from him.
"I got to go, take care of....Damon." Stefan frowns like the idea pains him.
"How's he doing?" I ask not having heard from him in the past few days. He normally sends me millions of texts all day and I've had none. I was pretty worried. Plus I felt weird not talking to him. It became so normal to me.
"He's.....dealing, in his own way." Stefan smiles slightly. I laugh, I can imagine how he's DEALING with things.
-------
"Don't you feel bad? Not telling Stefan about the fact we were coming to mystery women Trudy's house?" I smirk as we get out of the car.
"He doesn't need to be here for this. He keeps things from me, I can keep things from him." she shrugs.
"Ooo, trouble in paradise?" I tease.
"I wish it was ever paradise." Elena frowns.
"And it probably won't ever be paradise. Now lets go talk to this Trudy women." we walk up to the door and I don't even hesitate before knocking. After a second, literally a second, Elena starts to walk away but I grab her arm. A few moments later the door opens reveling a middle aged, slightly pretty, blond women.
"Trudy? Trudy Peterson?" I question making sure it's the right women. That would be embarrassing if it wasn't.
"Yes." she smiles.
"Hi, um....my name is Elena Gilbert and this is my sister Arianna. We just wanted to talk to you about Isobel Flemming." Elena explains. Ugh, I really hate my full name.
"I haven't heard that name in years. How do you know her?" she asks, surprised.
"I think that, um.....well.....do you know if she had twins that she gave up for adoption?" Elena questions not knowing how to word it.
"My God, you're her girls." she lets out a little laugh, "I was just gonna make some tea. Would you girls like some?"
"Sure..." I trail off just a little creeped out.
"Uh, the kitchen's this way." she points behind her and steps to the side, purposely not inviting us in. Does that seem strange to you?
We head over to her table while she goes and grabs the tea. "We weren't gonna come but we were driving and hit this stoplight. It made us think of when we learned how to drive our Mom would always warn us....." she trails off, "We had your address, I'm sorry for barging in." Elena apologizes.
"It's no problem." she smiles sitting down. "A surprise so....I haven't thought about Isobel in years."
"When was the last time you saw her?" I ask.
"Uh...about 17 years ago when she went to go have you two. We kept in touch for a while but..... you know people drift apart." she shrugs.
"And you don't know where she ended up?"
"She was in Florida for a while, she was on her own. You know it wasn't easy." Trudy explains.
"Do you have any idea who are father is?" Elena asks the question I've been thinking for a while now.
Trudy hesitates, "I could never get her to fess up. Anyway, she finally pulled it together. Got into college on a scholarship."
"Where did she go?" Elena smiles.
"Somewhere in North Carolina. Duke, I think. Smart girl, smart school." Trudy laughs. We hear the tea pot whistle, thats what I like to say when it makes that noise. Trudy stands up, "Let me just grab that." she heads into the kitchen.
As soon as she's out of hearing distance, I whisper to Elena. "Something about her is not right."
"What are you talking about? She seems like a nice, normal woman. You're just paranoid Aria, drop it." she glares at me. I sigh, Elena doesn't want to believe something is wrong but I know something is.
And I'm gonna find out what.
--------
"The football team hadn't won in years, we were the stars." Trudy laugh showing Elena and I there high school year book when they were cheerleaders. "Well....Izzy was but I was a damn good back up." Elena laughs but I roll my eyes. There's something about this woman that bothers me still.
"This is great, thank you." Elena grins.
"You're welcome." Trudy looks over at me, and the untouched tea in front of me. "You haven't touched your tea."
"Maybe I just don't want it." I sneer.
"Aria, drink the tea." Elena smiles trying to contain her anger. I sigh and pick up the tea. I take a sip and I swear I can recognize that smell. I smell the tea and it comes to me.
Vervain. She has vervain in her tea.
"What is this?" I glare.
"Oh it's just some herbal mixture." she stutters.
"Vervain?" I glare. Elena gasps and smells her tea. "You know." I state.
"Know what?" she asks innocently.
"You didn't invite us in and you're serving vervain tea. I can put the pieces together, Trudy. Don't lie to us, I know you know." I seethe.
Trudy stands up shaking a little, "I think that you two should probably leave."
"Gladly." I smirk at the same time Elena says, "Wait. What are you not telling us?"
"Please." Trudy grounds out. When Elena makes no move to leave, she raises her voice. "Leave! Now!" I grab Elena's hand and we quickly walk out the front door, away from that insane women.
"Don't say, I told you so." Elena mumbles. I smirk but it quickly vanishes when I see the freaky ass dude in the road, staring at us.
"Elena, get to the car quickly. Don't turn around, there's a guy watching us." I whisper, quickening our pace. Of course Elena looks behind her and gasps a little. "Move!" I whisper urgently not liking this guy what so ever.
We quickly run to the car, slamming the doors shut behind us. Elena speeds off, not wasting any time.
What the hell is going on with our lives?
-------
"Damon?" I call out walking into his room. He comes sauntering out of his closet in only a pair of jeans. I force myself not to look at those amazing abs.
"Yes, Aria?" he slurs his words signaling he's drunk.
"You look, um....." I trail off not wanting to say anything mean for once.
"Dashing? Gorgeous? Irresistible?" he smirks, now right in front of me.
"Wrecked. You look wrecked." I sigh pushing him away.
"No reason why." he mumbles. "Did you know that I'm one of Mystic Falls most eligible bachelors." he grins.
"Never would have guessed." I mutter sarcastically.
"Yup."
"How are you doing?" I ask actually worried about him.
"Never better." he lies putting on his shirt. "So, what can I do for you? I'm a barrel of favors today. So...how can I help you?"
"I'm just meeting Stefan and Elena, we're going to the fundraiser thing." I roll my eyes.
"Help a guy out, would ya? I can't get this." he can't button his shirt because he's too drunk. I sigh and walk over to him, buttoning his shirt.
"So....Elena and I found out who our birth mother is." I smile.
"Ugh, who cares? She left you, she sucks." he whispers in my ear. I back away from him, glaring. I'm about to say something but Stefan and Elena walk in.
"Elena, Stefan." I say relived, walking over to them. Stefan smiles at me but Elena gives me a look that says, tell me what happened later. Jeez.
"I need a bigger jacket." Damon groans trying to get his leather jacket on. "Wow, you know you'd think the occasional sorority girl would help fill you out." he jokes buttoning the rest of the button's I didn't. He grabs his jacket and walks past us, giving me a look on the way out.
Once he's gone, I spin around facing Stefan. "He's fine?"
"He's Damon." Stefan sighs.
"Maybe this heartache will be good for him, remind him that he has a heart. Even though it doesn't beat." I glare at nothing in particular.
"Wouldn't hold my breath." Stefan says.
"So, we went to see Trudy Peterson. I know, I'm sorry, we didn't really plan it." Elena states, finally confessing to Stefan.
"How was it?" Stefan asks.
"Creepy. She has vervain, Stef. She knows about vampires, it can't be a coincidence." I sigh.
Stefan frowns, "It isn't."
"Excuse me?" I hiss.
He pulls out a picture of Isobel from his pocket. "This is Alaric's wife."
"This is her. This is Isobel. He gave this to you?" Elena questions.
"Everything he knows about vampires, he learned from her. He believes that she was killed by one." Elena and I both gasp. A vampire killed our mother?
"Oh my God." Elena has tears in her eyes.
"Listen, you guys, there's a lot about Isobel that Alaric can tell you but I need you to hold off a little while before you talk to him." Stefan pleads.
"Why?" I demand.
"I know that it's a lot to ask of you two but will you do that....for me?" he asks.
"Ah, how about no." I glare.
"Aria, just give him some time. Please, for me." Elena sighs, taking her boyfriend's side.
"Whatever." I seethe, grabbing my bag and storming out of there room. How can Elena wait? Doesn't she want to find out information on Isobel?
She's just doing it for Stefan. I'll give them one day, only one.
--------
"He's already been hit on, like 35 times. He's total cougar bait." Caroline smiles. Her and Matt are apparently getting serious. Good for her, she needs a good guy.
"Impressive." I laugh.
"More like embarrassing." Matt rolls his eyes, embarrassed.
Caroline laughs but quickly cuts it short, "Hi Mrs. Donovan." I turn around and see Kelly walking in. Huh, I haven't seen her in forever.
"Elena honey." she smiles, giving Elena a big hug. She ignores me, she never really did like me.
"Kelly, hey." Elena laughs pulling away.
"Long time no see." Kelly smirks.
"How are you doing?" Elena asks. I look over at Caroline and see her glaring at Elena. I'm guessing she doesn't like that Kelly likes Elena better.
"You know same old things. Oh, Matty tells me you broke his heart." she fake pouts.
"Mom." Matt groans.
"Just kidding, calm down. He found his rebound girl." she says looking over at Caroline. Caroline looks down embarrassed and it pisses me off.
"Um, excuse me Kelly? Why don't you show Caroline a little respect? If you want to be some rude bitch, go do it somewhere else." I say as politely as I can. Elena and Matt looks over at me shocked, Kelly glares at me, and Caroline smirks. She mouths a thank you and I just shrug. If you disrespect my best friend you disrespect me.
"Anyway, give me however many that can buy me." Kelly says handing Caroline some money. "I just hope I don't get bachelor number three, I dated him in high school. Not impressive." Kelly laughs, Matt glares at her. Caroline hands her, her raffle tickets. Kelly takes them then smirks our way. "Very exciting." she leaves and I glare at her back.
"Aria! How could you be so rude to her?" Elena glares at me.
"How could you be so nice? She's freaking treating Caroline like nothing. Oh and Matt, how good of a boyfriend are you? You just stand there doing nothing while your Mom bashes on her? Jeez, no wonder why Elena broke up with you." I growl and walk away from them. I don't know what got into me. I guess my life is really screwed up right now and it's screwing with me. I hope it's that and it's not just because I'm a cold hearted bitch.
--------
"And what do you do bachelor number three?" Mrs.Lockwood asks. I look over at Caroline and we burst out laughing. It's just to funny not too. I mean were sitting here practically watching Mrs.Lockwood flirt with all the guys.
"Uh, I'm a plumber." number three states.
Caroline leans over and whispers, "I think I may need to break a pipe." I laugh and roll my eyes.
"Isn't that wonderful? We could always use more plumbers." Mrs.Lockwood smiles. "Moving on, number four. Alaric Saltzmen, wow that's quite a mouthful. So Alaric, what do you do?" I look over a few tables and smirk at Jenna. Elena and I both know they like each other. It's quite cute.
"I'm a teacher at Mystic Falls High." he answers looking embarrassed.
"What other school is there here?" I joke to Caroline. Caroline thinks for a moment before shaking her head causing us both to laugh.
"Beauty and Brains, ladies. This one is a keeper. What do you teach?" Mrs.Lockwood questions.
"History." he states.
"History, huh? Well, give us a fun fact about Mystic Falls. Something....crazy." she smiles.
Ric looks over next to him at Damon before answering. Damon smirks and holds a hand over his ear, joking that he's ready to listen. "Well.....uh...." Ric fumbles for words.
"He's probably just saving the best stories for his date." Mrs.Lockwood says. "Now last but not least.....Damon Salvatore. We don't have much on you."
"Well, I'm tuff to fit on a card." he smirks. I roll my eyes, typical Damon.
"Do you have any hobbies?" she asks. "Do you travel?"
"Oh yeah, I love to travel LA, New York, a couple years ago I was in North Carolina. Near the Duke campus actually, I think Alaric went to school there. Didn't you Ric?" he looks over at Alaric. "Yeah...except I know your wife did." I frown and sit up strait in my chair. I look over at Elena and see she has the same expression. Please don't say what I think you're gonna say Damon.
"I had a few drinks with her once. She was a great girl. Did I ever tell you that? She was.....delicious." he smirks. I feel unwanted tears coming to my eyes.
"I need to go get some air." I mumble to Caroline before practically running out the front door.
A few seconds after I get out Elena and Stefan come out also. "Aria, Elena." Stefan says trying to get us to calm down.
"He killed her? Damon killed her?" I ask my voice cracking. "Damon was the vampire that killed her?"
"I don't know what happened. Alaric said they never found the body." he explains.
"Oh my God, Stefan." Elena glares mad that he didn't tell us. I'm more hurt than mad at the moment. I was starting to really like Damon.
"I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you two but I wanted-" he starts to say but I cut him off.
"Save it. I was feeling sorry for him, I was starting to care about him. I actually thought he cared about me. I'm so stupid." I cry.
"He doesn't know the connection between you guys and her. I thought about confronting him but he's already so on edge." Stefan tries to explain.
"Why are you protecting him?!" Elena yells.
"Because you guys aren't the only ones who were hoping he would change." Stefan sighs.
Elena shakes her head and looks at something behind Stefan. "That man. We saw that man outside Trudy's." Stefan and I turn around and sure enough he's standing there watching us.
"Let's go inside." Stefan says gently pushing us to the door. I let him push me, feeling completely numb inside.
Damon killed my birth mother.
---------
I walk out of the bathroom and run into a hard chest. "Wow, easy there. Buy a ticket like everybody else." Damon smirks.
I glare at him. "Did you enjoy that? Rubbing it into Alaric Slatzmen?"
The smirk fades off his face, "What?"
"Just as I was starting to think that there was something redeemable about you. I actually thought we were friends." I say my eyes tearing up just a little.
"Aria." Stefan warns coming up behind Damon with Elena by his side.
Damon turns around, looking confused. "Am I missing something here?"
"Did I forget to mention earlier when we were talking about my birth mother, the one that gave me up, her name was Isobel." I hiss. The smirk fades of his face once again. "Go ahead. Reminisce about how you killed her." I push past him and once again head for the front door. I just need to get home. I don't think I could handle anymore surprises tonight.
As soon as I walk out the door I come face to face with the mystery man. "You've got to be kidding me." I mumble at the same time Elena and Stefan walk out.
"Come on let's get you two home." Stefan announces not having seen the guy. Once he spots him, he pulls Elena and I behind him.
"I have a message." the man states in a deep voice.
"What?" Elena asks. At the same time Stefan questions, "Who are you?"
"Stop looking." he says.
"Stop looking for what?" I ask tiredly. I am so sick of all this shit.
"She doesn't want to know you. She doesn't want to talk to you." he says again. Who is she?
"Isobel?" Elena whispers. I look over at her, Isobel is dead. Right?
"Stop looking. Do you understand?" he asks harshly.
"She's alive?" I question.
"Does that mean she's a-" Stefan cuts her off.
"You guys, he's under compulsion." Stefan frowns.
"Do you understand?" he practically yells the question.
"Yes." Elena and I say at the same time. Oh, yeah. Twin powers.
"Good, I'm done now." he smiles before stepping back a step into the road. A truck hits him, immeaditly after. Elena and I both scream, as we see his body just laying there.
We run towards his body but it's quite obvious he is dead. Isobel compelled him to kill himself? How evil is this women? I see his phone lying on the ground so I bend down and pick it up. I stare at it for a second, thinking. Isobel's number could be on this phone.
"Come on, let's get out of here." Stefan says quickly leading us away. I look back once at the dead man on the road. Even if Isobel is alive, I want nothing to do with her.
---------
I walk into Elena's room and throw the phone on the bed. "I'm pretty sure Isobel's number is on here so if you want to call her...." I trail off.
"I think we should, that's saying if she's even alive." Elena sighs.
"She is." I say without a doubt. Elena picks up the phone, flipping it open. "There's only one number dialed. It has to be her." I point out. Elena presses call and puts it on speaker phone.
She answers after only one ring. "Was there a problem? Did you find them? What's going on?" she questions. Elena looks over at me, shocked.
"Isobel?" she asks trying to confirm her suspicion. After a few seconds we hear the line go dead. I close the phone and look up at Elena.
"She's alive." Elena states, smiling slightly.
"I don't care." I state before heading back to my room. I may be lying a little but......
She made a man kill himself. Would you want a mother like that?
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Hey guys, so sorry for the wait and the fact that it's unedited for like the hundreth time ;)
So, do you guys think Aria will forgive Damon?
I think she will, just saying.
Keep voting and commenting, lovin all the feedback :)