Love and Loss (The Fun Gilbert Book 3)

Chapter 21- Yellow Ledbetter/ Alive and Kicking

3rd Person P.O.V.

Jessica Carter had convinced Vivianne and Eric to convince Elena to not have Alaric erase her memories of Damon. It was a difficult task but she had an even more difficult one, she needed to go see Esther while Finn was distracted by Cami. While Carter and Vivianne had their tasks, Meredith went with Elijah, who needed to see Marcel.

At Marcel's loft, he has yet another group of humans, hoping that they can become vampires. He had gotten one recruit, Gia. She had come back and Caroline had explained things to her before going with Josh to wait in Marcel's loft when Elijah and Meredith showed up. Marcel finishes his speech before turning to the well-dressed original, trying to avoid his companion that reminded him too much of the friend he had lost. "Elijah. Didn't expect to see you and your girlfriend on this side of the river."

"Didn't expect to see you assembling a new vampire community. I guess we're both full of surprises?" Elijah returns.

"What can I say, I've been rebuilding the vampire population. I would call it my army but I made a recruit who refuses to let it be called that and despite her age, she is very strong."

Caroline walks over with Enzo and Josh trailing behind her and snorts, hearing Marcel's comment. "What can I say, Jessica always said that you can be more powerful than anyone if you can manipulate your emotions," she says with a contagious smile ,while Meredith laughs.

"I think what she said was that she's more powerful than anyone because she can manipulate everyone else's emotions," she jokes and everyone chuckles, knowing that they both sound like something Jessica would say. After a couple of beats, Meredith turns to Caroline. "Hey, can I talk to you?" Caroline nods and Meredith kisses Elijah's cheek. "I'll be inside." He nods before turning to Marcel.

Caroline waits until they are far enough away that the vampires won't hear before turning to Meredith. "What's wrong?" She questions, having seen the same look on Jessica whenever something was bothering her.

"I don't know," Meredith sighs. "Maybe it's all in my head but it feels like now that Hayley is a hybrid, Elijah cares more about her than me. He spends all of his time with her. I had to push and push and push to convince him to let me tag along. Plus I've been talking to Davina about a way to get Jessica back but she says she doesn't know and now she's being distracted by this Kaleb guy. Oh and let's not forget that Stefan gave up the search for his brother and my sister and Elena is trying to have Ric erase her memories of Damon."

"What?" Caroline questions, shocked that Elena and Stefan would do something like that.

"Don't worry, Vivianne is in the process of talking Elena out of it as we speak. As for Stefan, there isn't really much that we can do about him," she begins but Caroline cuts her off.

"Enzo and I can bring him here. Stefan can't just abandon his search. I won't lose Jessica," Caroline states, determined. "As for Elijah, he's a nice guy, he probably wants to help Hayley out because Klaus isn't exactly the best role model." Meredith frowns at this and Caroline becomes apprehensive. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just, Klaus has been acting...off. I mean he lost his daughter and I get that that would change someone but he's not handling it in an 'I'm going to murder every person that crosses me' kind of way. He's handling it in a Jessica way, which is weird since he can't remember her, but he's done this before. It's like Jessica's words are coming out of Klaus' mouth. This morning, Elijah told him to help Hayley out and he said that he's going to take her to the bayou to help her reclaim her place as queen of the wolves because that might help with her growing anger."

Caroline looks shocked. "You're right, that does sound more like Jess than Klaus. What's Cami got to say?"

"Klaus won't talk to Cami. But Vivi has a theory that his love was stronger than Genevieve's spell and he doesn't want us to know since Jessica's dead anyway. She decided to test the theory. She's heading to the bayou-" Her phone cuts her off. It's a text from Vivianne saying that she talked Elena out of it and telling her about the herbs Caroline had gotten her off of. "Now," she continues. "She talked Elena out of it so she's off to talk to the wolves. I think that she just hopes that she can convince Ollie to join our side again."