CENTURIES, stefan salvatore [1]

Growing Pains

CHAPTER 59: GROWING PAINS

Mystic Falls Hospital

Change. It's such a simple word, isn't it? Only one word, six letters and yet it could have such an impact on someone's whole life. It can be the small things, like changing your hair, and it could be big things, like changing even your species. But change is something awfully difficult to cope with sometimes and sometimes you have to let the people cope before going there to support them.

Natalie Saltzman sucked at change. You never knew if it would change for the better or for worse. It could get up at cloud nine where you get everything you've ever wanted and it could break you apart piece for piece and steal your soul. And as a pessimist, her thoughts on change usually drifted to the latter option.

So her sister, Elena Gilbert, turning into a vampire was a huge change that she felt was going to be awful. So many things had been going wrong lately and so many things had been going right. She didn't want more wrong and she didn't want to ruin the good. She didn't want to lose another person she cared about and she didn't want to lose the slowly rebuilding relationship the two had by getting, I don't know, eaten?

And as Elena had to get used to the thought of the whole change, another person was going through a different change. Matt Donovan was used to being the happy, blond kid with no real importance in the lives of the other people in town. But now he had to get used to the crushing guilt of being the reason his ex-girlfriend was dead and couldn't do anything about it. He changed for the worse, or at least how was feeling changed for the worse.

But he was being discharged from the hospital, and since Stefan suggested that Natalie should get out of the house, as Elena had to get used to the bloodlust and Jeremy was more than enough human in the house, she was helping him get out of there.

But they weren't the only two there. Caroline Forbes stood in front of them, her also feeling a change in how she was feeling. She just lost someone she loved very much. Her boyfriend. Tyler Lockwood. And another change in her life was that she could no longer walk around in her own town and feel safe as she was being hunted by the vampire hunting town council.

Matt shook his head at the guilt that was pressing onto him, making him feel like just simple crap. "Elena doesn't want to be a vampire."

Caroline sighed at his persistent need to blame himself for the death of their friend, except, as you know, she wasn't completely dead. "She doesn't want to be dead and now she's not. This isn't your fault, Matt."

"It's all my fault. I was driving. I was saved. She's a vampire because of me!" he exclaimed, not knowing how she was able to not blame him for it. It was all his fault and she should have accepted that the moment she heard about the crash.

The blonde vampire's eyes widened as she heard him use a word he shouldn't use so loudly because of all the vampire hunting going on around town at the moment. "Shh! Cool it on the V word. I'm a fugitive, remember? I'm supposed to be halfway to Florida by now."

"Then why aren't you?" Natalie spoke up softly, looking at her best friend with worried eyes, easily just wanting her to be safe, and she wasn't really safe as she was walking around town visiting everybody she knew.

"Because I don't know where to go," she answered, tears building up in her eyes at the thought of previous events. "Tyler's dead and everything's different now and I..." Matt and Natalie exchanged looks for a moment before the two embraced the crying girl who had just lost who she felt as if was the love of her life at the moment. She sobbed as she hugged the two, before she suddenly stopped and was out of the room.

The reasoning quickly became clear as a deputy opened the door, looking around the room before looking between Matt and Natalie, and not recognizing their faces from any pictures of fugitives they've gotten. "Sorry," he apologized to the two before getting on his dispatch. "All good here."