Fighting Love | Stefan Salvatore

The One With The Journals

Emily had been working non-stop for the past two days since the bonfire to find a way to bring the real Stefan Salvatore back. Emily, of course, knew the emotionless vampire wasn't going to tell her anything useful to help her, so the Radkova witch found herself digging into Stefan's journals.

Emily always hated the idea of invading someone's privacy, especially her ex-boyfriend's, but this was between getting Stefan back or losing him completely to that evil vampire side of him.

The Radkova witch had even enlisted Elena, who gladly agreed to help, before they began reading through Stefan's journals. The Gilbert twins focused all of their attention on the time period when Stefan had his emotions switched off and it all started in the beginning of 1922.

It was a lot to get through. It was way more than Emily had ever imagined. The Gilbert twins had at least eight journals each to read through. However, Emily guessed it made sense after finding out that it took Stefan thirteen years before he finally flipped his switch back on and allowed himself to feel again.

The Gilbert twins were on their third day of research. It was a pretty Sunday afternoon, so instead of being stuffed into a dark room at the Salvatore boarding house, they were sitting at a table outside of Mystic Grill in the warm weather.

Emily and Elena worked together in a comfortable silence while they occasionally threw ideas out to each other about how they could help turn Stefan's emotions back on. However, the Gilbert twins' focus was suddenly pulled away from the journals when they heard someone call out to them, "hey!"

Emily quickly looked and followed the sound of the voice before she smiled when she noticed a waving Jenna with Alaric and Jeremy heading their way.

Emily placed a grey Mystic Grill napkin into the journal to mark her place before she closed the leather book just as the trio arrived at her and Elena's table. "What are you guys doing here?" The Radkova witch curiously asked as she folded her arms on top of the table.

"I know you girls are working hard, so I thought we would join you for lunch," the Sommers vampire proclaimed as she took a seat at the round table with Alaric on her left and Jeremy sitting on her right.

Elena immediately grinned over to her aunt. "That sounds great," the human girl murmured. "I was starting to get hungry, anyway," Elena added with a chuckle.

"Perfect," the Sommers vampire murmured with a grin of her own. Jenna glanced around the table before she announced to the group, "I'm gonna go grab some menus."

The table was silent for a moment as the group watched Jenna head inside of Mystic Grill before Alaric focused his gaze onto the Gilbert twins. "How's the research going?" Alaric inquired as he nodded his head towards the journals that was spread around the table.

"It's going," Emily murmured. "It's rough having to read through everything Stefan had to go through," the Radkova witch admitted as a brief frown appeared on her face. "It's a lot of pain," Emily absently whispered as she lightly stroked the front of Stefan's journal.

The human Petrova doppelganger quickly reached next to her before she gave Emily's hand a light squeeze to offer her some sort of comfort. Elena knew how hard Emily was struggling through this. Hell, it was difficult for Elena herself to read through Stefan's journey of getting his emotions back.

"But we might have an idea," Elena told the group before she focused her brown gaze onto Jeremy. "We need your help," the Gilbert girl told her brother.

Jeremy immediately furrowed his brows in confusion as he glanced between his two sisters. "How could I help?" Jeremy questioned in uncertainty.

"We noticed a common denominator through all of these journals," Elena stated as she pointed at the leather books lying across the table. "It's Lexi," the human girl uttered as she gave Emily a moment to herself. "Lexi is Stefan's best friend and she was the one to bring him back before," Elena explained to the group.