𝟓𝟑

a/n: Lottie's outfit for the chapter is above!

☆═━ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄━═☆

"Are you absolutely sure that you don't want to drink this?"

Charlotte asked for what could be the twentieth time, holding up a blood bag as she looked at Serena, who had just risen from the dead, "No, Charlotte, I don't want to drink it. It's disgusting."

"But..there's no other explanation as to why you were dead and suddenly you weren't," Elena folded her arms together. She, too, was belwirded by Serena Bernard's awakening.

Happy, yes. Surprised, very much.

Serena sighed, "I don't know any explanation but can't we just be happy that I am alive and you know...not dead?"

Damon nodded, sitting down beside her, "Agreed," She scooted away from him and next to Charlotte as he raised his eyebrows in confusion.

"Where's my jacket? I need to go home," Serena claimed, rising to her feet.

"But you are exhausted, c'mon, you can stay over tonight," Damon assured her, standing up.

She shook her head, "No, I don't want to stay over tonight or any other night," Serena stated, pulling her jacket off of a chair, "In fact, I would really like it if you never talked to me ever again."

He frowned, uttering, "Wait..wait, what happened? I don't understand."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, "You really don't know?" Damon shrugged his shoulders to which she replied, "What happened is that I can't be friends with the guy who murdered my grandmother."

Charlotte's eyebrows almost raised to her hairline, exchanging a look with Damon. She wasn't supposed to know that.

Serena chuckled humorlessly, turning to Charlotte, "Judging by your look, you must have known about that, huh?"

The Bernard vampire rubbed her sweaty palms together, responding, "It wasn't exactly something I could bring up in a conversation."

"How do you know about that...?" Damon managed to ask.

"My grandmother told me that day where all the freak ghosts were roaming town and guess what? I am a freak too, yay to that," Serena answered, shrugging her shoulders before she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

Charlotte pulled the cap off of the blood bag and raised it in the air, "Bottoms up?" She drank up before walking out a few minutes after her niece.

✵ ✵ ✵

Charlotte, for once, convinced herself that she shouldn't feel bad about helping and being one of the reasons that Damon and Elena's plan went to hell. She did the right thing or so she thought. If it weren't right, then Stefan wouldn't have helped too, right? Wrong.

The brunette pursed her lips together looking down at her diary. She shouldn't be using Stefan Salvatore as her scale of what's right and what's wrong. He, himself, was just as lost as her, if not more.

"Charlotte?"

She blinked back to see Elena's hand waving in front of her face, "Earth to Charlotte...where you at?"

Charlotte shrugged, clearing her throat, "Here...just thinking," She shook her head at herself before asking, "What were you saying?"

Elena crossed her arms, repeating herself, "I feel like I'm going crazy. Totally paranoid all the time."

"Well...normally, I would relate," Charlotte retorted, rubbing her palms together, "But I can't sleep and that's the problem for the day...I guess."

Bonnie sighed, addressing the two, "You both have a right to be restless. Klaus is still out there and he knows we tried to kill him."

"Why hasn't he made a move? There has been no sign of him," The doppelganger let out a long sigh of frustration, "Nothing. Just my slow spiral into insanity."

"Join the club. Every time I close my eyes, I have that nightmare. On repeat."

"The same dream?"

"Is that possible?" Charlotte raised her eyebrows before shaking her head at herself, "I mean witch supernatural wise?"

"Yeah! Four coffins, Klaus is in one of them. It's weird!"

"What if it's not just some dream?" Elena asked, agreeing with Charlotte, "What if it's like...you know...witch dream?"

"I have read somewhere that when you have a dream more than once it's probably a message from your subconscious," The Bernard vampire shared, folding her arms together as Bonnie turned to her, "The dream repeats because you have not corrected the problem in reality."

Bonnie was buying it for a second before shaking her head, dismissing, "It's just stress. I'll figure it out," She sighed before asking, "And what about Stefan? Has there been any sign of him?"

"He betrayed us, Bonnie," Elena answered and Charlotte's hand scratched the back of her head. What if Elena knew about warning Klaus, would she think the same? She would have every right to but Charlotte didn't want to lose her or Paulina Gilbert which put her in a rather peculiar position, "The Stefan that we know is gone."

"And we are supposed to just give up on him?"

Bonnie and Elena turned to the brunette vampire when she blurted out the question, looking down at her milkshake. Noticing their glances, Charlotte realized that she asked out loud and it wasn't in her head.

"I mean...after all of this, we are just going to pretend he never existed?" Charlotte continued, realizing she couldn't take her question back and she didn't want to, "Why am I the only one not accepting this?"

"Stefan is gone, Char," Elena took in a deep breath before stating, "The sooner you accept it, the better."

She furrowed her eyebrows together, "The sooner I accept it?" Charlotte looked between the two best friends in front of her, waiting for either to speak up and take that back before she sighed, "Wow...you used to giving up on people you love?"

"This is not—"

"Yes it is, this is exactly what you are doing," She interjected, claiming, "I don't care about Stefan or if he lives or dies but I thought I knew you better than this," Charlotte shook her head at Elena, "That you would go to the end of the world for him, where is that now?"

"I will not go to the end of the world for a ghost of the person I love," Elena responded, swallowing a lump in her throat, "He almost got Damon killed."

Charlotte raised her eyebrows, "Oh, so this was never about Stefan at all. It's about Damon, right? That's all it is about these days."

Bonnie ran her tongue over her bottom lip before speaking up, "Maybe we could save this for another day...you two don't have to fight."

The Bernard turned to her, "I am not fighting. I am asking, okay? I deserve to know about this, don't I? I mean if my best friend, don't know if she sees me the same way though, is developing some sort of feelings toward someone...I should know, right?"

"Now it's about me and you?"

Charlotte pursed her lips together, "Elena, you don't understand," She exhaled sharply, "You feel something towards Damon and you are guilty about it so the thought that Stefan deserves this...is such a relief to you."

"No, I don't—"

Bonnie cut her off, "Just admit it, Elena."

"No, I won't," The doppelganger shook her head, looking in Charlotte's way, "Because if I admit that, Charlotte...if I believe that for just one second, then what does that say about me..."

Charlotte wanted to reach forward and squeeze her friend's hand in reassurance but she didn't. She had her heart broken before because the one she loved presumably fell in love with someone else. Given that Stefan was the one to break her heart, she wouldn't wish the amount of pain she felt on him, ever.

It was Katherine for her, just a girl that made her feel insecure but for Stefan, having the girl he loved more than anything leave him for his brother. He would be shattered.

"Sooner or later, you will have to admit this," Charlotte replied, folding her arms over the table, "And I know this could hurt your feelings but Stefan doesn't deserve you doing this to him."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Then do something about it!"

Elena sighed before looking down at her fingers before Charlotte shook her head and rose to her feet, "Charlotte, wait," She called out but Charlotte left her bill and walked out of the Mystic Grill.

Serena on the other side of the room, busing tables and assuring herself that everything was fine before she would have to switch places with the bartender in front of Damon Salvatore and Alaric Saltzman.

She sighed, turning to the Senior from last year, "Are you sure you don't want to keep bartending?"

"Yes, Rena, I am sure," He rolled his eyes, walking past her before she eternally groaned, taking his place behind the bar.

"Anything I could get ya?"

Damon looked up at her, "Just the person I was waiting for."

"Ew, just the person I was trying to avoid," Serena replied, letting out a long sigh, "Can you go back to being the dick everybody hates and just leave me alone."

"Look, I made a mistake and...," He sighed as Serena raised an eyebrow when he paused, "I won't repeat it..."

Alaric scoffed out, "Just apologize, asshole."

Serena nodded, realizing what that was about before pursing her lips together, "I don't want an apology, Damon, so don't waste your breath. I just want you out of my life which is a lot easier than owning up to being a...murderer."

✵ ✵ ✵

Charlotte didn't know where to go. She was tired. Oh, beyond that even. She was tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world's weight she had never chosen to bear.

Charlotte found herself walking through the forest close by to the ruins of the Fell Church. She picked up a rock from the ground and threw it in the empty hole leading to the tomb she had spent the majority of her life inside.

If someone had asked her what heaven felt like, Charlotte would have answered freedom, without a doubt. Although she was a girl with many obligations towards her family and the name she held, Charlotte always was free to be her own person and do whatever she wanted, go wherever she wanted.

Being locked up in the tomb for 145 years stripped her of that freedom and left her with nothing but the remnants of her old home and the things she can never bring back. Charlotte had a breath of fresh air when she was first out of the tomb, she felt free.

She missed that. That happiness, that foolish smile on her face when Damon was teaching her how to use a mobile phone or when Caroline explained cheerleading. Charlotte sunk to the ground before laying down.

It was scary how things changed quicker than the wind picked up in Januarys and with a lasting effect, much like the pain that loving him had cost her.

Charlotte Bernard was positive. She had a motto, positive thinking, positive outcomes. Nowadays she didn't even know what made her get out of bed in the morning. She just knew that everything hurt but she wouldn't want to stop it because the last time she did, it was worse than ever imagined.

"I need to feel this," She spoke up, looking up at the blue sky, a few hours away from darkening and welcoming the dusk, "I need this pain, without the pain then I am not me...and that's probably all I have."

Charlotte's mother was everything opposite to her, where the young girl spoke of happiness and how everyone deserved it. Clarissa Bernard claimed that only certain people do deserve it and even if they do, not everyone lives long enough to feel the happiness rushing through them when their loved one pops the question or their kid walks for the first time.

"Listen, there will come a time where life is a bitch...it will knock you down, my sweet Jillian," Her mother caressed her cheek, continuing, "And all you can do in times like that is...get up. Don't let it knock you down. Don't accept the defeat, keep going."

"I don't understand any of this, mère," Charlotte remembered responding so cluelessly.

Clarissa smiled down at her daughter, "I know you don't, Jillian...One day, you will do well to remember this. Keep going."

Keep going. In everybody's life, there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive.

Charlotte needed to accept that, she can't make her pain sweet but she could keep going with it, find the strength within it. It was the only way to do right by her mother's words and keep going.

✵ ✵ ✵

"Don't forget to get the groceries, okay?"

Serena rolled her eyes, replying, "I got them last week. You and your husband get your own groceries. I work to provide my own food, not an entire house's—"

Coralie cut her off, exhaling sharply, "Look, sweetie. Sometimes, families get through financial problems and...," She trailed off, trying to find the right expression before her daughter chose to cut in.

"And that's not my problem," She said, drying her hand with a towel after being done with the dishes at the Mystic Grill, "Look, let's be clear about a few things. I don't like you, nor do I like Jacob and I am not okay with the two of you staying in my house but I am being nice so don't push it, Mom."

"Serena Lilith Bernard, you never talk to your mother like that ever!"

She scoffed out, "I have said worse, Cora. It just hurts to know you can't use me."

"I am not using you, I am—"

The youngest Bernard interrupted, "Excuse me, got work. Gotta go."

She hung up quickly, letting out a long breath. Times like this Serena wondered what her father, Adam Bernard, crowned Prom King, charity boy, and top of his class ever saw in Coralie Young nee Bernard. Coralie was a mess and she knew that; a mother that's never there and a woman that blamed everyone around her but never herself.

Serena only kept wondering...Was there ever a chance that one day I am going to be like her?

She hoped not, if someone asked Serena Bernard what her greatest fear was, the answer would be simple. Turning out like her mother one day.

Serena cleared her throat, looking up to find Damon still sitting at the bar when she stepped out of the bar, "You just don't get tired of hearing the word go away, do you?"

"I didn't mean to do what I did," Damon started before she shook her head, cutting in.

"Yeah, yeah, you did. Nana Izzie threatened to kill Charlotte and you, ever the hero, stepped in and killed her. There's nothing accidental about this, Damon," She folded her arms together before claiming, "And I don't blame you, maybe if I were that close with Charlotte and cared about her enough...then I would have killed for her, too."

"But you are not?"

"No, I am not."

Serena sucked in a deep breath, resting her hands on the bar, "I don't blame you for what you did but I have every right to hate you and want you out of my life. So, if you want to play good guy, do it to the end. I am so sick of everything going on in my life and I don't need another problem."

"You are my friend, okay? I am not letting this go," Damon rose to his feet, stating.

She scoffed, raising her eyebrows, "I am not your friend, Damon. I am the charity case, yeah? That girl who lost her family and her sister. If it wasn't because how Charlotte would feel if you helped me then you would have never crossed my path."

"That's a lie and you know it," He shook his head at her, refusing.

"Even if it is, I don't want you as my friend," Serena said, looking him dead in the eye, "I don't want another thing to feel guilty about. Becoming friends with the guy who killed my grandmother? Forgiving the girl who lost control and was an indirect reason that my sister is dead."

"I am alone and frustrated but I am not that messed up," She excused, rolling her eyes to add, "And let's not forget the fact that I died...I actually fucking died..."

She took a deep breath, raising her hand to her face when she felt her eyes watering at the memory before her phone rang. Serena pulled it out, reading the caller ID before throwing it on the ground in frustration, "And now that bitch of a mother is just sneaking her way into my life. Like I needed more shit to deal with."

"Your mother is back in town? You didn't tell me...," Damon trailed off, raising his eyebrows before she gave him a look and he sighed, "Look, if you don't want to see her then it's okay, you don't have to stay with her in the same house."

"Yes, I do," She rolled her eyes at his dumb statement before shrugging her shoulders, "I don't have anywhere else to go."

"You know you do."

Serena pursed her lips together before questioning, "How did it feel, Damon?" He frowned upon her question as she continued farther, "How did it feel to look at me suffering and hating myself and my entire existence, knowing that you taking my grandmother for me was the straw that broke my back."

Damon shook his head, saying, "I didn't help you for Charlotte or because I felt guilty, Rena," He sighed, revealing, "I helped you because I felt that kind of pain, too. I lost my youngest brother, going with Klaus was to save me. Losing him is on me and me alone."

It wasn't for any sort of selfish reason which didn't surprise Serena but disappointed her. She wanted to hate Damon, she really did. It would make things a lot easier but how can she hate someone that pulled her out of a place that no one in her life ever could have, he made sure to put a smile on her face when all she could feel were the tears rushing down her cheeks.

Serena ran her tongue over her bottom lip, exhaling, "My shift is over. I need to go," She walked out from behind the bar and straight to the Mystic Grill's door, closing the door after her.

✵ ✵ ✵

Charlotte picked herself off the floor after receiving a message from Bonnie Bennett, asking to meet her at the abandoned witch house, immediately. She wasted no time, vamp-speeding over there.

She sighed, looking ahead of her when she recognized Stefan standing next to the witch. He looked at her for a moment before turning to Bonnie, "I told you not to tell anyone about this."

"Yeah?" Bonnie raised an eyebrow before she folded her arms together, "I don't trust you but I trust her and she believes that somehow, you are not...entirely gone. She stays if you turn out to be good then great. If not...all hope is lost and we can all move on from this."

"She...agrees."

Stefan scowled, turning to face Charlotte when she spoke up. "If you have something against this—"

He cut her off, claiming, "Oh, I have a lot of somethings against this."

"Good," She smiled, acknowledging him before shoving past him and straight to where Bonnie stood, "I don't care."

✵ ✵ ✵

Serena unlocked her door, walking inside to find Coralie sitting on the couch with Jacob, presumably awaiting her arrival, "And she did not get the groceries..."

Coralie turned to her husband, "Stay out of this, Jacob. This is between me and my daughter."

Serena walked past the two and upstairs, she wasn't ready for any of this. She had just died, dropped dead. She felt the cold and empty feeling of death through her bones and suddenly, she gasped awake. It was quick but it affected her more than she would let on.

"When I am talking to you, you are supposed to listen to me! Not ignore me and walk away," Coralie shouted, following her upstairs and to her room. Serena sat down on her bed, laying down before her mother shook her head, "God, where did I go wrong raising you..."

Serena let out a long breath, feeling the tears forming in her eyes again before she uttered, "Where did you not..."

"What is wrong with you?"

She didn't reply, standing in front of her daughter for more than a few minutes but realizing that Serena won't talk any soon, the older Bernard rolled her eyes and walked out of the room.

"Everything..."

✵ ✵ ✵

Charlotte raised an eyebrow, deducing, "So, Bonnie has to hide the four coffins of which you stole from Klaus to get back at him...," She trailed off as Bonnie nodded, "This is completely irrational."

"I am going to ruin him."

The brunette vampire turned to Stefan, furrowing her eyebrows together, "At what cost? What is the point of this? You got your freedom back. If anything, you should focus on where to start rather than where to end it."

Stefan scoffed, shaking his head, "I am not ending anything."

"Yeah, you are," She chuckled humorlessly in response, "Klaus will kill you, just hand him the coffins back, and maybe...he will be merciful enough to let this go."

"I have been dead before, I got over it," He replied, folding his arms over his chest, "I am done living in fear of him."

"God, how stupid are you? I am on your side, okay?" Charlotte ran a hand through her hair before exhaling in exasperation, "This won't end well."

"I have planned everything—"

"So did we, last time."

Charlotte turned around, finding Damon was the one who replied. Fair enough. She didn't know what to say to that, considering they did have it planned but she chose to warn Klaus and that wasn't something she regretted so far.

"Then you betrayed us."

Elena walked out from where she stood behind Damon, finding Charlotte there was not a surprise and the Bernard assumed Bonnie must have told her over the phone.

"Stefan?"

"Go away! You shouldn't be here Elena," He dismissed her, shaking his head as Charlotte exchanged a look with Bonnie and Damon before beating the lot of them out of the abandoned and old haunted house.

She placed her phone in her purse, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear before Damon questioned, "Why did you just pull us out of there?"

"Did you just seriously ask that...?" Charlotte scoffed out, "Privacy, what nobody ever taught you that?"

"Easy there...aggressive much."

"Prying much?" She mimicked back.

"What is going on with you?" He dropped the joking, asking her in concern.

"Aside from dealing with your suicidal brother, nothing much," Charlotte folded her arms over her chest, the annoyed scowl not leaving her face for a second.

"Why do you care, anyway," He paused before raising an eyebrow, "Wait...do you?"

"No, Damon, we are not."

Charlotte let out a frustrated huff, turning to Bonnie, "See what I mean?" The witch held back a small smile, crossing her arms together.

Elena stormed out of the haunted house minutes later tears in her eyes before she turned to Charlotte, "You wanted me to try? It's pointless."

She frowned, shaking her head, "Elena...you don't think someone like Stefan to kill plenty of people and hurt you then go back to the person he is overnight, do you?"

"You didn't take months and you didn't betray us."

"I am not Stefan," Charlotte claimed in response, "And to be honest, I was worse. I was insufferable, reckless, and everything I am normally not. Worst of all, I enjoyed it," She inhaled sharply, "This is what we have to deal with, Elena. Letting someone we love down and remembering that we liked it...it's worse than whatever you have imagined."

"I am done with all of this," Elena sniffled back her tears, shaking her head.

"Let me talk to him," Damon suggested before offering the doppelganger his car keys, "Here. Take my car keys. You go deal with your brother, I'll deal with mine."

He gave the keys to Elena, and then rushed into the house as Charlotte shoved her hands in her jacket's pockets, shrugging when Bonnie turned to her, pursed lips together. "Well, this is...fun?"

✵ ✵ ✵

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose them all at once; you lose them in pieces over a long time— the way the noise stops being annoying, and their scents fade from the pillows and even from the clothes in their closets and drawers.

Gradually, you accumulate the parts of them that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular absent part that overcomes you with the feeling that they are gone, forever—there comes another day, and another particularly yearning part.

Serena didn't know how to do...grief. She knew how to numb it. Some would say that with her experience in it, she could do a doctorate on losing the three most important people in her life before she even finished high school.

Serena looked at her clock on the nightstand, it was 1:19 am. She rolled over to the other side, hugging her pillow to her chest. The brunette was so used to it, holding something close—even if it was inanimate and wouldn't protect her from the monsters lurking in the shadows, it made her feel safe and that was such a foreign feeling to Serena Lilith Bernard.

She let out a long breath before hearing her doorknob unlock. The brunette's body stilled, spotting a shadow in the vivid light from the street lamps seeping through her see-through curtains.

She sat up, pulling a vase on her nightstand and smashing it against his head before gaping when she recognized him, "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

✵ ✵ ✵