ALMOST IS NEVER ENOUGH | TVD [1]

XXXVII • THE DINNER PARTY

thirty-seven. the dinner party

Devon Lake House, Dunham Lake

Rosie is comfortably sitting on the sofa in the warm family room, reading one of the vintage leather-bound journals which belonged to Jonathan Gilbert, near the back glass sliding door of the lake house, 'With the dying embers of the fire at Fell's Church, the scourge of the vampires had passed. And though war raged all around us, our town was safe from the demons of the night...or so we thought.' 1864 truly was one of the darkest periods for the town of Mystic Falls, since the day Katherine Pierce showed up in town; she turned many of the innocent residents, including Stefan and Damon, in order to send the rest to their own tragic demise to fake her own to ensure her survival once she eventually managed to run away, thanks to her allies. With that came the hysteria and the tragedy as the horrible consequences.

She flips to the next page of the old journal and reads it with interest, 'For the monsters we drove to their fiery deaths had begat new monsters. I knew I was about to die. You cannot run from a vampire. I saw the vampire who killed me. I recognized him. It was Stefan Salvatore.' The bloodthirsty Ripper, she remembers when she first heard about him almost one hundred years ago sometime during Christmas...how truly sorry she felt for that man; what with the overwhelming guilt and shame he had to go through after. Although who would have thought that he was the same man who she was engaged to when she was only human? Her childhood best friend, her own ex-boyfriend who's now standing outside on the dock, overlooking the lake. Although how was Jonathan able to write these down when he was killed? The resurrection ring, which is passed down to the rest of the Gilbert family, thanks to Emily Bennett who casted a spell on it just for this brilliant man.

Rosie looks up from the journal with a truly shocked expression and looks out the clearly transparent back glass sliding door at Stefan, who remains standing on the dock while skipping stones across the lake. His cell phone rings in his front jeans' pocket and he answers it; Damon is on the other end of the line as he remains at their home around the spacious boarding house.

Stefan resumes to overlook the lake with a frown, "What's going on?"

"Well, I showered. I shaved. Had breakfast with Andie. Very relaxed."

The former ripper breezily shrugs it off, "That makes one of us." Halfway.

"I did hear one piece of good news though. Tyler Lockwood ran away from home last night." Damon informed him of the intriguing breaking news. Perhaps the young werewolf chose to run away with Jules and her pack? He doesn't mind at all; in fact, the further the werewolves are, the better. Safer.

Stefan shakes his head a little in denial, "How do you know?" Is it even true?

"Well, I heard it from Sheriff Forbes, who heard it from a very distraught Carol Lockwood, thus, ending our werewolf chapter, bringing us to..."