Merciful - TVD [2]

56

  Outside of the Grill, Mallory found herself sitting at a table with Caroline and Elena, who were working on their graduation letters. Mallory was only there because Caroline had insisted she had, but she was fine with that. It wasn't like she had anything else better to do. She had only sent one graduation letter out and in all honestly, it was as a joke. She knew the person wouldn't actually come.

"Stamp, please," Caroline spoke up and Elena wasted no time tearing off a stamp before handing it to Caroline, "Thank you."

"You don't have to pretend to be nice to me, Caroline. Either of you. I know this is just a ploy to keep me distracted," Elena complained as she sighed dramatically.

Mallory exchanged a look with Caroline, watching as the latter looked down at Elena's stack of graduation letters and frowned.

"You're done?" Caroline asked, a surprised look on her face, "I'm only on my second batch."

"We have family friends in Denver," Elena replied as she held up a single letter, "Other than that, no one cares that I'm graduating and, to be honest, neither do I."

"I know that's how you feel now, but once you get through this hating Katherine phase--" She began to say, earning an eye roll from Mallory.

When she forced Elena to switch her humanity back on, she thought everything would go back to normal but it wasn't. Elena ended up channeling all her emotions into hating Katherine, which was something affecting all of them. It was emotionally draining, to say the least.

"Wait, do you know where Katherine is?" Elena asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought.

"No. Why would I know where she is?" Caroline replied, exchanging a weird look with Mallory.

"Yeah, but, Caroline, if you did, you would tell me, right?" Elena desperately asked and Mallory groaned, placing her face in her hands.

"God, Elena, you're obsessing," Mallory complained, an annoyed look on her face, "You're like Stefan hating Klaus 2.0, but worse. Much worse."

Just then, Elena roughly grabbed ahold of Mallory's hand, a desperate look on her face. "Mallory, listen to me, if you know where Katherine is then you have to tell me," She demanded and Mallory turned to look at Caroline, who gave her a look that told her to have patience with Elena.

Rolling her eyes, Mallory grabbed Elena's hand and yanked it off her own. She sighed, exchanging an annoyed look with Elena. "I don't know where Katherine is. That's the thing about Katherine. She leaves at random without telling anyone and then pops back up at the most random times. You never know with her. Learn that now and you'll realize this obsession of yours will get you nowhere in life."

_____

After getting a call to meet at the hospital, both Stefan and Mallory entered to find Damon already there. Mallory frowned, looking ahead to see police tape can be seen across a doorway and policemen in the reception area.

"You just missed the doughnuts," Damon commented sarcastically and Mallory turned to face him.

"Sorry, I was with Caroline," She admitted and Damon rolled his eyes since he wasn't surprised.

"Yeah, well, I was with Elena, burning off a few thousand hate-filled calories. What happened to you helping me?" Stefan complained and Damon smiled slightly.

"Help, yes. Prolong the inevitable? Waste of my time," Damon answered sarcastically and Mallory smiled slightly.

"Mm, you're avoiding. How unexpected," Stefan replied and Damon scoffed.