A lot had happened to Stefan since meeting Michael. Most of it hurt, the first decade alone had felt less like rehabilitation and more like a slow, deliberate torture. Michael had called it discipline. Stefan had called it hell. Blood intake reduced to almost nothing be it animal or human until the constant jitter beneath Stefan's skin became unbearable. His hands shook and his thoughts frayed. Every heartbeat within fifty feet felt like an accusation.
Michael hadn't flinched once.
"Pain teaches restraint," he'd said, calmly, as if Stefan's suffering were nothing more than a lesson in posture and infuriatingly… it had worked.
By the time Michael began easing him back into feeding, he didn't make the same mistake everyone else did. There was no only animal blood nonsense. No moral absolutism masquerading as control.
Michael had created… a meal plan of a sort.
Human blood, twice a week.
Five hundred milliliters each time.
No more. No less.
Enough to sustain him but not enough to awaken the ripper.
Stefan had followed that routine for nearly a century and it saved him. Another thing Stefan noticed was something that never stopped bothering him. It was the fact that Michael never drank blood. Not once. Not in front of him. Not in private. Not ever.
Which made no sense.
Michael was fast and insanely strong. Stronger than elders Stefan had met, if Stefan was being honest with himself. Everything about him screamed ancient vampire except the glaring absence of the one thing vampires required.
Stefan never asked.
He owed Michael too much to pry. Without him, Stefan would have been long dead or worse, still alive and drowning in bodies. Michael had given him tools no one else had even tried to offer except Lexi. Not Damon who wanted to help tried enough.
When they parted ways, it hadn't been dramatic. Just… inevitable.
But contact never stopped, every few decades, a new method emerged. Letters. Messengers. People especially humans, vampires, others who somehow worked for Michael. That part had unsettled Stefan the most. Humans who were loyal and unafraid. As if they knew exactly what Michael was… and chose to follow him anyway. Which unknowingly to Stefan were Michael's werewolves.
Still Stefan never questioned it. Some mysteries were better left untouched.
Mystic Falls — 2010
Things, as it turned out, were going very differently back home. Bonnie had her latest victory, if one could call it that. True to his word, Damon had led her to the site of the witch burnings. An abandoned house steeped in resentment and old magic. The spirits had made their presence known immediately.
They froze Damon in place then proceeded to barbecue him by messing with his ring.
Turning off his daylight ring had been a particularly cruel touch. Bonnie had eventually taken pity on him, communing with the spirits until they relented. Damon, once unfrozen and only mildly traumatized, had wasted no time leaving.
A call came from Elena, or so he thought which had drawn him to the Lockwood Mansion. Instead, he found John Gilbert's body at the bottom of the stairs. Bitten and technically dead.
Unfortunately for everyone, John had been wearing his ring.
After explaining the unpleasant details to the sheriff, Damon disposed of the body and left her to invent a story. But when he returned home, he found the moonstone missing.
That had not improved his mood.
Meanwhile, Stefan had confronted Katherine in a desperate attempt to find Elena only to be rewarded with a syringe of vervain to the neck and the floor rushing up to meet him.
As darkness claimed him, one thought surfaced unbidden.
'Michael would have seen this coming.'
Which brings us to now with Stefan waiting by Damon's car, one hand resting on the hood, the other cradling his phone. He scrolled once more through the message he'd just finished composing, thumb hovering, then finally pressed send.
The message was to Michael, it wasn't particularly long but it was dense.
He wrote about coming back to Mystic Falls for Elena, about pretending to be normal while the past clawed its way forward. About Damon returning with chaos in his wake. About Katherine being alive, manipulative, and obsessed with the doppelgänger who shared her face. He summarized the tomb vampires, the Founders, the moonstone, the witches, and the growing sense that this town was a nexus for things that should have stayed buried.
Then he wrote about the truth that mattered.
The Originals, one of them named Klaus, a man particularly obsessed with the doppelganger for a reason they haven't fully uncovered yet but all that is known is that he wants was hunting for Elena and the moonstone to break a curse tied to the stone. A ritual. A sacrifice. A countdown Stefan could feel in his bones.
He ended it simply:
(I don't know if I'm asking for help or just warning you. But Klaus is coming for us my old friend. And if you're ever going to step back into this world… it might have to be now for I need your help once more.)
Stefan locked the screen and exhaled slowly.
Right on cue, the front door burst open.
"Let's go," Damon said, already moving, irritation radiating off him as he headed for the driver's side.
They climbed into the car, the engine roaring to life as Damon peeled away from the curb.
As they drove, Damon's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, answered, then smirked. "Huh."
"What?" Stefan asked.
"Jeremy says Bonnie pulled it off," Damon replied, hanging up. "Tapping into the spirits. Says she's strong enough now."
Stefan's jaw tightened. "Finally some good news."
A beat passed before a question popped up.
Damon shot him a sideways look. "So. Who were you texting back there?"
Stefan stiffened. "Uh… no one."
"Uh-huh," Damon said dryly, pressing the accelerator. "Sure."
Boston — Over a Hundred Miles Away
Michael's phone vibrated once.
Then again.
Then again.
He stopped walking and drew it from his coat, eyes narrowing slightly as he saw the name Stefan stacked in succession. Another notification followed immediately after.
Bells.
Michael sighed as he opened Stefan's message first, scanning it with calm efficiency. His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes sharpened.
"Damn," he muttered quietly. "I was hoping to make my appearance after the hybrid curse was broken."
"Everything alright?" a voice asked.
Michael looked up. Brandon stood a few paces away. Loyal for nearly nine centuries, being bound to Michael's life force had done that. A side effect of the bite, the bond and of the three hundred desiccated vampires Michael still sustained with blood, their linked vitality feeding not just him, but the werewolves tied to him as well.
Many had chosen release when given the option. They chose death by flame over endless existence and over an eternity with Cade as he had so informed them.
Brandon had never hesitated and decided to stay with him through the dreaded path of time.
"Everything is in motion," Michael said evenly. "Which means I need to be in motion as well."
He glanced down as another message appeared one from Bells. He opened it, exhaled, then locked the phone.
"Prepare my transportation," Michael said.
Brandon straightened. "To where, sir?"
Michael's lips curved, just slightly.
"Virginia," he replied. "It's time Mystic Falls was graced with my presence."
"And," he added softly, "it's time I see my professor again."
————————————-
A car was pulling into the Grove Hill Cemetery. After the car pulled to a stop and the engine was killed the driver got out and went to open the back driver's side door. Climbing out of the car Isobel took a few steps before glancing back at the still open door.
"Just because you can't be compelled doesn't mean I can't force you to come with me." Said the vampire.
For a few moments there was neither sound nor movement before Elena climbed out of the car.
"So is that what happened? You were compelled to betray Katherine?" questioned the girl.
"If I was, I couldn't tell you." Said Isobel
"So you lied. You did find Klaus, didn't you? He knows where I am now. Are you taking me to him?" said Elena firing off her barrage of questions.
Isobel said nothing, instead she moved over to a nearby tombstone and crouched in front of it.
"What is this?" Elena once again went unanswered verbally, though her question was answered when she moved closer and could see the tombstone and what it said.
In loving memory - Isobel Flemming - Jan 18, 1978 - May 4, 2007
"My parents, your grandparents, they put it here when it became clear that the police weren't gonna find my body. They visit every week, and they bring flowers, even though there's no one buried here. The Isobel they knew is dead. So maybe there's a part of me that's buried here, the-the human part, the part that I abandoned when I-when I choose to become a vampire, the part that used to dream about the day that she'd know her daughter." Said Isobel not looking up from the grave.
"What?" questioned the teen in surprise.
"Unfortunately, instead you got to meet the other part. The part that would betray her own flesh and blood." Said the vampire before her phone rang.
"I have Katherine and the moonstone. Is the doppelganger safe?" a man on the phone said as he held the moonstone to eye level while a woman identical to Elena was unconsious on the ground behind him.
"Yes." Isobel answered
"Then let her go." he said
"Let her go?" Isobel asked
"Klaus has everything he needs for now. Your part is finished. You did what he compelled you to do." he replied
"I'm done?" Isobel asked
"You're done." the warlock confirmed as Isobel hung up
"Who was that?" questioned the girl.
"I'm so sorry, Elena. I was such a disappointment to you."
Isobel finally stood, turning to face her daughter fully now. Her expression softened not with hope, but with resolve.
"The best thing I can do for you now is tell you where to look for help," she said quietly.
Elena frowned. "Help from who?"
"A friend of mine and Alaric."
Elena looked more confused than comforted. "who?"
Isobel hesitated for only a moment. "The best person I know to call when monsters stop being stories," she said. "Someone Klaus doesn't expect. Someone who won't fail you."
As she finished speaking she removed her ring and dropped it at her feet. Immediately she began to burn in the early morning light before her body burst into flame, the area echoing with her screams before they abruptly cut off as she turned to dust leaving a shocked Gilbert girl behind.
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