for the rest of us death will be a relief

[praevaricatio]

Comments

[unpreparedness]

Normally, I'd ask you to let me feel my feelings, but I'm remembering they're all over the place, so let's step away from the parental figure guilt. ( Focus on facts and questions. ) How are you back?

[happiness_elude]

It's a long ...

[Well, she's supposed to be a distraction, isn't she? If not the time for long stories now, then when?

Alright, time to go back to the beginning:]

Do you remember Dean Winchester?

[unpreparedness]

That kid who had a thing for Elena? Their dad left them with you and Grayson.

( She remembers. She... can't for the death of her figure out where this is going, which actually makes it tittilating. )

[happiness_elude]

Right, well, he and Elena are together now. And she was helping them with a project that triggered some kind of spell and it brought me and Grayson back to life. It was a failsafe, so that a witch they were hunting would have some bodies to jump into to prolong their life.

But she was handled, and because she was handled a certain way, Grayson and I got to stay.

[Does that make any sense? She doesn't really think so but it's also the truth.]

[unpreparedness]

( It makes more sense than she thinks. Not, that she has experience in any of it. Only the very long story Alaric and Elena told her and Stefan all told her at various points. Damon was snarkier, but he made the crazy sound fun, at least. )

Elena's boyfriend was working on a witch-hunting project that brought you two back to life. ( Well, at least she's being told. ) How are you taking that? Got any good tips for someone crawling their way back to relevance?

[happiness_elude]

Honestly, I'm not sure I have any. I'm saying the wrong things and I've been stuck in a bunker for the past month with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

[She's not having a great time.]

Elena and I keep fighting. I'm ... it's hard. Especially after so long. When I left she was still a child and still needed me and now she's well into adulthood and a doctor and has this whole life that I don't fit in anymore, because she had to grow without me.

[unpreparedness]

...Like a bomb shelter?

( Why is her sister in a bunker? )

She needs you, just in a different way. You'll relearn each other. When... you're out of that bunker.

[happiness_elude]

Dean and his brother have a bunker. They inherited it? I think? Elena's living there now.

[A beat.]

It's actually rather comfortable for a bunker, it's just oppressive when you can't really go anywhere else. But that's what I'm hoping. I think we both need some space.

[But venting her problems was not the point of this phone call.]

How are you doing?

[unpreparedness]

I think anywhere you couldn't leave would become oppressive. There were a few weekends I kept myself on lockdown on campus.

( but her sister isn't keeping herself there. what's keeping here there? )

Not being dead agrees with me? ( Is that fair? ) I'm alive. Sort of. Still sorting through it all and blatantly not asking questions about what life is like in 2040-something, if that even is the year. I'm okay. The last thing I remember is ... not something I'll ever forget, but, I'm here now. In California.

[happiness_elude]

Elena told me what happened.

[Not the same as being there, obviously, but she knows. Jenna doesn't have to tell her - not that she was probably going to.]

She'll be really happy to see you. I think she carries a lot of guilt about it.

[unpreparedness]

I don't blame Elena, and if she needs me to say that to her face, I will. ( She closes her eyes, reliving the ring of fire. Of Elena talking her through vampire fundamentals. Doing the damage she could before her life ended. ) That was all Klaus.

[happiness_elude]

Caroline says that she puts a lot on herself she doesn't have to.

[And it's something Miranda wishes she could make easier, but again, they're not communicating at their best right now.]

But she was prone to that before her life became full of vampires and death.

[unpreparedness]

I remember how she blamed herself for Caroline's crushing defeat at being student council president. And, how, even though we all knew Elena was making the right decision about Matt - Dean Winchester not withstanding, she blamed herself.

( What girl hasn't thought, "Is it me," any day of the week. )

I didn't handle it all great, but in my defense, Elena's birth mother rang our doorbell and dropped the bomb that she was a: alive and b: Elena and her had met before. And, she was my boyfriend at the time, Alaric's, ex-wife. And he also knew she'd been alive. I found out weeks later what all that meant. I was working on forgiving everyone and being kept inside. But, I didn't stay inside.

[happiness_elude]

[Miranda thinks back to the night she first realized what vampires actually were. How Grayson told her to stay inside, and she did, but how silly it had sounded the first time he asked it her.]

You couldn't have known, Jenna. What it all really meant. No one prepared you for it.

[And then her own hint of guilt because she should have prepared her.]

I should have. I'm sorry.

[unpreparedness]

They tried. I got the crash course. Even got a handy less on the ins and outs of the crossbow.

( Pointless to her, eventually. )

It wasn't your place to tell me. I was your kid sister. I was in grad school. Not... around vampires. Oh. Except, Logan Fell? Returned. And was turned. I didn't know then, but Elena told me later on. Still an ass to his dying day.

[happiness_elude]

Why doesn't that surprise me. Of all the founding families, the Fells some how were always the worst.

[Never change, Fells. Never change.]

Though it doesn't seem that there are much of the founding families left anymore.

[unpreparedness]

Bet they still are.

( She would take a literal bet. )

I can't believe that. Really?

[happiness_elude]

Really. I think it may just be the Fells and Elena and Jeremy. Caroline's a vampire and her parents are dead, and Zach Salvatore is dead from what I understand.

[She pauses.]

I'm not sure where werewolves would fall in terms of the Council, so I suppose Tyler still counts? But they're certainly not performing as the Council has in the past.

[AKA: hunting vampires.]

[unpreparedness]

Yes, Zach died... the next year. That fall, I think.

( "Uncle" Zach. )

From what I remember, the council went through a few iterations and Damon was on it. I wasn't read in. Oh, John was in and out for awhile and Elena learned about her birth parents.

[happiness_elude]

I heard. She's ... told me about a lot, but it's almost impossible for her to go in depth when there's so much of it. Or even tell me all of it.

[Her shoulders slump some in response, not that Jenna can see it.]

Their lives have been so hard.

[unpreparedness]

They're good kids and worked with the hand they were dealt. Elena made it clear, she chose to be with Stefan and everything that comes with, but, that most of her problems were outside her. Katherine. Klaus. All because she's a doppelganger.

( She remembers that talk vividly. She answered all of her questions, as did Ric, even though things were so raw. )

Isobel became a vampire and brought even more complications to town before I finally learned everything.

[happiness_elude]

[Isobel was a vampire. Somehow that is both surprising and not.]

Isobel always brought complications.

[She takes a breath, before shaking it off and deciding to change the subject.]

Tell me about what I missed.

[And that should hopefully give them enough to talk about for a couple hours, while Caroline, Serena and Ryan drive out to Beacon Hills. When they arrive at the sheriff's station, it takes Caroline a second to get out of the car, needing to pull herself together a little bit.

It'll be fine. Everything will be fine.

"Okay." She pastes on a smile. "Let's go."]

[quesadilla]

( Ryan parks, lets Caroline dictate when they go, and then slips out the front door following her and Serena.

Inside, her mother stands, hands on hips in front of a rolling board set up with the US map, tacks and red string, just like Stiles had told her.

Jenna's spinning in a chair in Stiles' father's office, almost through the entire bottle of whiskey she was given. )

[vampireboulevard]

[Caroline was doing really well with keeping herself together. Probably because her mother's resurrection was more of an abstract thing when Liz was just a voice on the phone and a problem that was in Beacon Hills, not right in front of her. Everything is easier when you can break it down into a problem to solve.

But when she walks into the bullpen, and there she is, already trying to solve her own case and something in Caroline breaks loose, like she's the twenty year-old girl she was when she lost her instead of a woman in her thirties with a career and a life.]

Mom.

[And she's making her way across the room as the tears slip down her cheeks, and the only thing she wants right now is to hug her mother.]

[opencases]

Caroline?

( The minutes trudge on, so eventually, her mother has to make herself useful. Stiles gives her access to this group chat of theories, but also, locations, so she's able to do something. Elena is at the center, but she isn't.

She's been asking questions, questions from what she can't surmise. She knows the Winchester brothers are also involved. And, also, these people here in Beacon Hills. The center of which: Derek Hale.

When she hears her daughter's voices, sees her in front of her, she turns and her daughter makes it to her before she's able to even move. And that's okay, too. She just holds her there for however long she needs. )