Gilbert Twins [1 - Twins Series]

1 - Hello, Brother

Book: Gilbert Twins
Chapter 1: Hello, Brother
Word Count: 2411

At the Salvatore house, Skylar was writing silently in her diary.

Dear Diary,

The search for uncle Damon and Enzo goes on and on, and we're no closer to knowing where they are, or who, or what took them.

Bonnie is somehow finding ways to steal small moments of normal every day when she comes round to do her daily check on me (she's worried I'm going to break). I have to constantly ask her how she does it, but she just says that it's how we all stay sane. I wish I could do that, but I fear I've already passed the thin line between sanity and insanity. I'm worried I've gone completely bonkers.

It's hard. It's the hardest thing I've had to do in my whole life.

- S.Salvatore

Throwing her diary roughly down beside her, along with her pen, Skylar buried her head in her hands as she struggled to hold back tears.

---

Stefan and Skylar, the world's best father-daughter duo, were walking through the woods as he filled her in on the new information he got from Caroline earlier.

"Look, I know it's not much, but it's a lead, I mean, all those missing people along the trail we've been following, and this is the first time a body has surfaced."

"Probably because it has nothing to do with what we're looking for." Skylar shrugged glumly. Stefan stopped walking and turned toward his daughter so he could look her in the eyes.

"Yeah, well, I can't let myself think like that. I have to treat every single clue like it's the one that's gonna lead us to them."

"Dad..." Skylar sighed and looked at Stefan with an exhausted and pained expression. "Every time we do this, I let myself hope a little. And when we end up back at zero, my heart crushes in on itself a little bit more. I don't know how much my heart has left, you know?"

"Sweetie, no one — not Caroline, not your mom, no one — knows how to fight longer or harder or better than you. If you give up, I won't have anything left to hold on to. Please don't give up." Stefan pleaded softly. That remark seemed to truly touch Skylar, and after a moment, her expression softened into a weak smile.

"Of course. But... don't ask me to have hope. Hope hurts, and I don't want to hurt anymore."

Stefan nodded in understanding, before Skylar changed the subject.

"Have you heard from mom? With everything going on, I was sort of hoping that she would come home and... you know, be there for me. She hasn't answered my calls and texts."

"She only left me one the other day." Stefan held up his phone and read the message aloud. "'Be there for Sky. I can't come home, ever again. It's not MY home anymore, so it's up to you to be there for her.' So, I think you should let your mom find herself out in the world before you two have your epic reunion someday, okay? But in the meantime, you have me, kiddo."

"Kiddo?" Skylar laughed, only to hide the pain that she felt when she remembered the time that Damon called her that.

"Too much?" Stefan laughed, too.

"Just a little." Skylar smiled. "Maybe you should just stick to 'sweetie', dad."

---

Stefan and Skylar had just arrived at the crime scene of the murder that Caroline had told Stefan about earlier that morning. The two found an investigator and immediately walked over to him. The investigator, who was kneeling in front of the front bumper of the car at the center of the crime scene, groaned in annoyance and frustration and stood to his feet as Stefan and Skylar approached him.