Brave (Damon Salvatore x OC)

Shadows of the Past

Ember and Elena are sitting on the front porch. Elena is writing in her journal and Ember is reading Fahrenheit 451. She is also listening in as Elena tries to call Bonnie. Again.

"Hey, Bonnie, it's me. Just checking in, seeing how you and Grams are doing." She pauses a beat. "We miss you here. Don't let your aunt drive you too crazy. Come home soon. Love you."

Jenna comes up the steps and notices them. "What are you two doing out here? It's cold."

"Thinking, writing." Elena explains. "Thinking, reading." Ember agrees.

"Bonnie's grandma being so sick... it brought back a lot about mom and dad." Elena explains.

Shelia had collapsed after the ritual, weak from the drain of her life force to power the spell. After almost a week in the hospital she had been discharged and she and Bonnie and gone to visit family to recuperate and rest. It had shaken them all and it was clear from the communication blackout that Bonnie was still upset.

Ember looks up from marking her page with leaf from the yard and asks Jenna. "I was wondering, you said that you would do some digging about them... The adoption?" She reminds them.

"Right." Jenna nods.

"So did you? Dig?"

Jenna looks over and Elena is looking at her expectantly too. "Come on inside girls."

At the dinner table Jenna opens up her laptop.

"Your dad kept everything from his medical practice. Records, logs, old appointment books." She hands Elena a old file folder. "I found an entry from the night you two were born."

"Patient and a birthdate!" Elena exclaims. "Isobel Peterson. Think that's her real name?"

"Pregnant teenage runaway? Probably not." Jenna admits. "First name maybe. But where'd she get Peterson? A classmate? Best friend?" She opens up a search engine on the laptop. "So I did a search."

She types in the last name. "I searched for all the Petersons in this area born the same year as Isobel." The results pop up. "Found three, two men... and a woman, Trudie, who lived in Grove Hill, Virginia."

"That's not far from here." Ember realizes.

Jenna smiles. "Well, watch this." She clicks on a link. A old newspaper article about Trudie and her best friend and fellow cheerleader pops up. "Isobel." Jenna points at the caption.

Ember grabs Elena's hand. "She was a cheerleader." She tells her sportier twin happily.

"Trudie still lives there." Jenna tells them. "This is her address." She hands over a address.

"What about Isobel?" Elena asks.

"I couldn't find anything about her."Jenna tells them regretfully. "Listen, there's something else. Mr. Saltzman, Rick?" She begins. "His wife was from around here. And her name was also Isobel."

"Wait." Ember catches on. "Was, as in?"

Jenna nods. "She died."

...............................

Elena had gone to tell Stefan about what Jenna had found out. He had asked that if they went looking for Trudie to call him to go along. He also had told her that Damon was 'Dealing, in his own way.' Ember wasn't sure if that meant a killing spree or sleeping his way through the eligible female population but she was sure she couldn't handle either. So, even though she missed him so much it was a physical hurt she wasn't going over there.

...............................

That was probably for the best considering what Stefan found back home at the boarding house. There we're currently about half a dozen co-Ed's dancing around the parlor in various states of undress and sporting bite marks.