Grace - Elijah Mikaelson -

Chapter 11

The next day, Grace was relieved to hear that John was fine and already out of the hospital. Of course he was back to annoy the hell out of her, but at least he was alive. It was a reason to get out of her bed today. She was done with disappearing and dying people.

Jeremy and Elena were both out and John was god knows were, so she could invest the day into working again. She did pretty good, by the afternoon she was even ahead of her schedule. Maybe she could do some distance learning courses if it went on like that. The eager student side of her missed university life badly. All those parties, all this creative correspondence between students and teachers. It had this atmosphere of learning that inspired Grace. But quite some time would pass before she could think about herself again.

When her phone rang, Grace was ripped out from her concentration and was a bit confused at first. One; it was already late afternoon. Time flies so much around here. Second, the caller was Alaric. Grace didn't even realize that he had her number. She answered.

"Ric?"

"Um...hi, Grace. How are you doing?"

Frowning, Grace stood up and walked to the kitchen counter to get herself something to drink. It was strange, Alaric and her really weren't close.

"I'm fine, thanks. How can I help you?"

His pauses and stumbling let Grace already assume that he was going to ask her out. She mentally prepared for ditching him.

"Uh, you know this decade dance is tonight...60's bah...some teachers called in ill, so I would be the only one there to watch over the children. I remembered you were there at the last dance, maybe you could join again."

Grace smiled relieved, happy that it wasn't the case she expected.

"Sneaky little colleagues you have that always skip the dirty school work...Count me in."

She laughed and Alaric thanked her before he hung up. Grace still wondered about his odd behavior but let it go quickly when she came to the question what she should wear to a freaking decade dance and that literally in the matter of a hour. Students prepared for weeks for this. Rolling her eyes she went upstairs to find something that would fit.

When she arrived at the dance, the first students were already there. It was nearly identical to the last dance she visited. The same bad alcohol free drinks and the same dumb laughter. Just different outfits. Her sister and her friends hadn't arrived yet.

"Hey Grace! You look really good."

Alaric came up from behind her and Grace turned around startled. She was getting jumpy, all those crazy attacks were getting the best of her.

"Oh, hey Ric. Thank you very much. Quite the fancy outfit."

Chuckling, she turned to the mass of children. Alaric seemed to have the same outfit trouble like she did. He also wore a normal looking outfit, just a bit more colorful.

"Those kids and their dances...did you like those when you were in school?"

Her chuckle turned into a laugh. She shook her head amused.

"Oh no, I wasn't that kind of student. I was the eternal loner, nothing like my littler sister. No clue where she got that from."

Grace spotted her sister coming through the door, together with Stefan, Damon, Bonnie and Jeremy. Ric seemed to have called the older Salvatore for kid duty, too. She smiled when she saw her siblings dancing closely to their partner.

They were interrupted from a girl Elena's age speaking into the microphone.

"The next song comes with a special message. For Elena...from Klaus."