Now And Then - Stefan Salvatore (currently editing)

1.93 "You Should've Told Me"

Night. At home.

Stefan poured me a drink and handed it to me. 

Then He poured himself one as well.

I sniffed at it.

Stefan "you always say it helps you better than blood"

I took a sip from it. 

 Stefan took one as well.

I looked at him and sighed "You're mad."

Stefan looked at me " of course, I'm mad. You lied to me."

I shook my head "I didn't lie. I just let some things out."

Stefan scoffed  " Come on, Angel, you lied to me."

Me "What do you want me to say, hm? Caroline just got Tyler back after thinking she lost him the night Nik made us all believe he died. They're happy, Stefan. And then all the things between us are going amazing. You're happy and i'm happy and -"

Stefan " You think I'm happy right now?"

I sighed. 

Stefan " do you really think that i am happy right now, Adelaide?"

I shook my head, voice cracking  I just didn't want to ruin it for you."

Stefan " you didn't even tell me who poisoned you. "

I nodded "because it wasn't his fault. He had no control over his actions."

Stefan walked to the fire place with his drink"you should've talked to me"

Me " Stefan-"

He threw his glass into the fireplace and yelled   "it was a matter of seconds, Adelaide! you were throwing up your life on that ground. I thought you left with Elijah and next thing i know is you being poisoned by a werewolf! you should've told me that night that you got poisoned instead of telling me you're gonna leave town with your ex!"

I stood up and put the glass on the table "You told me Nik was dead. I thought you're going to die too. I thought it was the best"

Stefan asked irritated "the best for you, Adelaide?!"

I sighed. 

Stefan asked confused "You don't get it, do you? Every time you coughed. Every time i heard you breathing in or out. It tore me apart"

i sighed "I'm sorry"

Stefan asked confused  "why won't you tell me things like that?"

Me "Because it's always been me! I had no one to lean on after my mother died. Except Elijah"

Stefan raised an eyebrow "he knew?"

I looked down.

He scoffed "of course he knew"

I sat back down on the sofa "But he is not here now, is he? i didn't tell you because i didn't want you to get worried ! you have so much on your plate now with Elena being a new vampire. I didn't want to burden you even more"

Stefan grabbed my drink from the table and gulped it all down.

 He sat down in front of me on the sofa table and put a hand on my knee "I don't care about Elena, Adelaide, i care about you. And if you're in hell then I'm in hell too. And i want to protect you but i can't do that if you don't tell me everything."

I gave him a soft smile "i love you"

Stefan gave me a kiss "i love you too.  i want you to come with me"

I raised an eyebrow, confused "where?"

Stefan " There's something we need to do. Come on."

At the school parking lot.

Caroline, Stefan and i, Elena, Matt, and Jeremy were all sitting at the picnic tables outside of the school. Bonnie and Damon approached us.

Damon " What are we doing here?"

Elena shrugged "I don't know. Ask Stefan."

Me "yeah, Stefan, what are we doing here?"

Stefan had some of the paper lanterns in his hand " We're finishing the memorial we didn't get to have earlier."

He handed me a lantern " We need to start healing, Damon. We've all lost so much, especially recently. I think we're numb to it. We push it away, we make a joke out of it, ignore how we feel. We've never just let ourselves grieve."

Damon raised his eyebrows  " So, you're lighting lanterns?"

Stefan nodded " Yeah. Yeah, we need to do this."

Damon "What we need to do is find out who this hunter is and what he knows about the death of the Council. We have more important things to be doing right now than this."

Stefan shook his head "Not tonight, we don't."

Damon scoffed.

Stefan " This is for my uncle Zach and my friend Lexi and for Alaric."

He lightened the lantern and handed the lighter to Matt.

Matt lightened his " This is for Vicki."

Caroline got up , took the lighter from Matt ad lightened her lantern " This is for my dad. And Tyler's."

Jeremy got up, took the lighter from Caroline and looked at Elena "This is for our parents. *looked at Matt* For Vicki. Anna. Jenna. And Alaric."

He lightened his lantern and looked at me.

I grabbed it and lightened mine  "This is for my human self, before i was thrown into this mess, for Katerina, for my mother, for Caroline's old self. for everyone who didn't get to choose to become what they are now "

I held the lighter out to Damon.

Damon shook his head "No way. I'm not doing that."

Then he walked away. I handed the lighter to Bonnie. She took a lantern out of the box and took the lighter from Jeremy. She got up and stood next to Caroline.

Bonnie " This is for my Grams."

Stefan looked at Elena. She got up and walked next to him. She lighted the lantern.

Elena took a deep breath "This um – is for my mom, my dad, Jenna, everyone that you've all lost, everyone that this town has lost. And for me, I guess."

She stepped forward and released her lantern. One at a time, we all begin to release our lanterns as well. We watched them float off into the night sky.