napalm skies <<>> kol mikaelson

14

"i felt a storm inside of me, not realizing it was the ghost of you."

14 | HOMECOMING

May, 2010

Charlotte couldn't believe that Nik had actually told her to meet him in Mystic Falls of all places, and she was even more frustrated that he wasn't allowing her any room to get out of it. She hated tagging along on all of his power struggles, and she had a feeling that returning to her hometown would cause mayhem for her psyche. The girl was barely holding on by a thread ever since Kol and Rebekah were daggered in the twenties, leaving her with only Klaus to confide in. Not only that, but it wasn't exactly like she could leave him either; she knew too much at this point, and with Mikael still following them, she knew it would be better to stick with Nik.

So, she spent the last ninety years with him, hiding in the shadows and practically never leaving his side. It was annoying, especially when the two had a tendency to clash—what with Charlotte still angry at him daggering Kol and Rebekah—and the only reprieve she had gotten was when Elijah decided to visit every so often. He provided a breath of fresh air to the world that revolved around Nik, and Charlotte wished he came by more.

She hadn't seen Elijah in a while, ever since Klaus stupidly told him in a bout of rage that he had buried his siblings at sea. Charlotte knew this to be untrue, or else she would've left the Original long ago, but she had no way of contacting Elijah, and she didn't want Klaus to make good on his threats and keep Kol away from her. That was how he always got her to do things, by threatening his own brother. It was a constant battle that Charlotte had grown bored of at this point.

She missed Kol more than anything, especially as she headed to the place that held her worst memories. She clutched the steering wheel tightly, the road in front of her stretching out across the long hills on either side of the racing red car that she drove. She could feel the ring on her left hand bite into the skin near her whitened knuckles, and she tried to remind herself to breathe. She wished he was here; the only way she would be excited about returning to her birthplace was to show it to him.

But of course, Nik always had to put her in the worst situations.

She let her mind wander as she followed the instructions that he had sent her. Apparently, there was a new doppelgänger in Mystic Falls and Nik was preparing to finally break his hybrid curse. Charlotte didn't really want to get involved, especially when she wasn't thrilled to meet a Katherine look-alike. She hadn't seen the Petrova vampire since her human years, but she could live with forgetting her completely. Seeing another girl with Katherine's face would be too strange for Charlotte, unless the girl was the complete opposite of Katherine—but that was unlikely. They were related, after all.

She also didn't want to get involved in the curse because Nik didn't want her to. She had done plenty things for him in the past—she always loved getting her hands dirty to release some adrenaline—but he had a very specific line that he never allowed her to cross. He always said it was because Kol would actually kill him if she died on his watch, but she had a feeling that she had grown on him too. One could only spend so long with someone before they came to tolerate them, and possibly see them as a friend.

So, she wouldn't intervene, but that didn't settle her nerves nearly as much as she wanted it to. The Mystic Falls sign passed by earlier than she expected, and before she knew it, she was inside the town, heading toward where the apartment complex was located. The sights of downtown brought a wave of nostalgia on, and she swallowed thickly. She didn't prefer recalling her childhood memories—other than ones of her brothers—and she wished that the stupid doppelgänger had been born somewhere else. It would make this a whole lot easier.