38. How I Met Your Great-Grandmother

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It took Riley several minutes to realize that someone was splashing water on her face. She opened her eyes slowly, then spluttered and sat up, wiping her face with her hands.

"About time," a female voice muttered.

Riley groaned. "I hate to say this, but I'm really glad that it's you here and not Stefan."

Katherine smirked. "I know. I've been keeping tabs on your little town. With Stefan off the rails, it almost feels like 1920 again."

"What do you want?" Riley asked, looking around. "And where are we?"

"Chicago," Katherine answered, ignoring Riley's shriek of outrage. "Stefan's hanging out with Original brother number two, and sooner or later he's gonna end up dead."

Riley frowned in confusion. "That doesn't explain why I, neither his brother nor his girlfriend, am here. In case you're not aware, he's bitten me twice."

Katherine rolled her eyes, before smirking at the teenager. "You're not here for Stefan. You're the distraction."

Riley raised her eyebrows. "You want me to distract Klaus?"

Katherine stood up. "You ask too many questions. Let's go." She strutted off in her heels as if she were modelling on a catwalk, knowing that Riley would follow her. What else could she do?

Riley walked with her eyes on every passing attraction, taking in the city that she'd never been to before – wondering if she'd ever be able to come back.

Katherine led her into a bar, the name of which she didn't catch. When they entered the bar, they saw Stefan lying on a table while a woman rubbed some red dust onto her hands and then onto his chest. He screamed.

The room was dark, only being lit by a circle of candles surrounding the table that Stefan was being tortured on.

"She's the doppelganger," the older woman said to him. "She's supposed to be dead, and that's why Klaus can't make hybrids, isn't it?"

At that moment, the woman looked up and spotted them, taking in Katherine.

"You're the doppelganger," she said in shock, spotting the same girl that she had just seen inside Stefan's head.

Katherine laughed, before her face took on a slight snarl. "I'm the original. And you're Klaus's creepy witch friend."

"Katherine Pierce," the woman nodded, remembering the name. "What are you doing here?"

"I just thought I'd introduce you to a friend of Stefan's," Katherine said, moving out of the way so that the woman could see Riley properly. "This is Riley, your great-granddaughter."

"What!?" Riley asked, coming forward to see the woman properly. "Gloria?"

Gloria looked at the girl in front of her and, immediately, memories came rushing back. This girl was the spitting image of her mother, Ciara, when she was a teenager. She'd spent years using spells and herbs to slow down the aging process, making out to her family that she had died many years before. Knowing that she couldn't be in their lives was hard, but she'd managed to deal with it. That is, until her actual flesh and blood was stood in front of her.

Gloria walked forward slowly and pulled the confused girl into a hug. "It's so good to meet you."

"I thought you were dead?" Riley asked in disbelief. "Mom told me-"

"It's a long story," Gloria cut her off. "But it doesn't matter now, because you're here."

They hugged again, before Riley remembered that Stefan was still lying on the table. She thought about asking Gloria to let him go, but first she wanted to understand what she was doing in the first place.

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