everyonelives | but oh what a year

He does what he has to, but not in the oftentimes reckless way, his brother does.

( More points in Stefan's favor. )

Well now, he's free of Jo's mind and that curse. And didn't that curse build in... parameters?

For right now, it seems that he and Jo are still at least a little connected. Anything done to him, she feels. I'm not sure if that's just a lingering effect of the curse being broken or that's they're new normal.

[Would certainly suck for Jo if it was.]

But it benefits Kai in the sense that all the people who want to just murder him can't without also hurting someone we care about.

Anything? And vice versa?

( That feels like it comes with strings. )

Talk about being off of the hook.

None of us like it. But as long as he stays away from Elena and Bonnie and the remainder of his living siblings, we'll allow it. We don't really have a choice.

["And his nieces. Definitely don't want him near the nieces either." Liv adds with a sigh. "Fortunately both of them are very far from him right now."]

I'll remember that, should I ever see him coming for his family or his nieces.

( He feels not qualified for this. But all information is useful if you want it to be. )

I wouldn't worry too much. I doubt he'll be anywhere near your vacation plans.

[Melanie is as far from a Kai priority as you can get.]

Maybe by the time you get back this will all be resolved.

I wasn't worried, mate, but that is a comfort.

( Kai's priorities are very narrow. )

Maybe I won't get back.

I wouldn't blame you if so.

[Liv makes a face because she would blame him if so, but the door is opening and more people are wandering through, so she's wandering off to start greeting people.

The party begins to wander and people shift into their various groups and eventually Stefan finds himself alone in a side room with Grayson Gilbert. He hesitates because he knows this conversation is one that they put off in favor of rescuing Elena, but he still is a bit nervous to have it.]

Dr. Gilbert. How was the drive in?

( The memory is fuzzy, and shaded in blue, but it's there. Stefan's face is the one that dove down and saved Elena. He'd chosen that for his daughter.

Knowing where he came from, giving Elena another chance - and then knowing where that got her. He could blame the vampires for that. But, Elena couldn't control how much she looked like Katherine, or that Klaus would have eventually needed and found her. A lot of that frustration and the sour taste in his mouth has let up considerably. But he still doesn't know how to take Stefan. Or what to do with him. She's moved on from the vampire loves of her life to a hunter - and he can't decide if that puts his daughter's life in more danger.

But her being kidnapped had nothing to do with Stefan or Damon. Or, Dean, for that matter. Only for who she is. )

Easy. Flat. ( Kind of long. He has a lot to thank him for and his eyes say most of it, but he knows better than to let thanks linger. Stefan is owed this, as are a few others in this party. And the sooner he gets it out, the sooner they can talk about anything else. ) Thank you for helping in Baltimore.

Of course.

[It's Elena. He would do anything for Elena.]

Thank you for trusting me with it. I know what we were asking of you was hard.

[Being asked to sit on your hands and trust other people to do the job you want to be doing is easy.]

We would've been in the way.

( Or, killed again. That's something he can easily wave away. Not a factor. )

It's hard, for Elena's mother and I, knowing that choosing for you to save her didn't make her life any easier. Or better.

[Stefan pauses as he considers how to answer that.]

I don't think Elena views her life as having been bad. Complicated, sure, but ... there was good in there too. Moments were she was happy.

[Moments where they were happy.]

I think she came out of it a lot better than most of us do.

I see it. So can Miranda. But, everything we've heard, complicated really pales in comparison to words we come up with. But, we know that wasn't the result of being with you or your brother, that Elena being Elena meant she was never going to have it easy.

( And that feels like progress to be saying. )

And we certainly didn't help.

[Stefan can admit that, ruefully. He knows that he wasn't an easy part of Elena's life.]

I can try and answer some of the questions, so they aren't all on her. I'm not sure if that would make it easier though.

You loved her. She loved you.

( He knows what he would do for love. )

I don't know how many I have. How many she would want me to ask. I guess... You saved her. And she knows now. When did you tell her you saved her?

Not right away. For a while, I wasn't sure that she wasn't Katherine. She's the one who turned me and I thought she was dead so seeing another woman with her face in your car was ... a shock, to say the least.

[He takes another sip of his drink.]

I'm not proud of the way I handled it. But by the time I figured out she wasn't Katherine, I was so in love with her that I didn't want to bring Katherine into it to taint it. But as most secrets do, they didn't stay that way for long and come out in the worst way possible. She found out I was a vampire before she found out about Katherine.

( Maybe as shocking as Elena felt when she discovered someone looked just like her. )

She accepted you. As a vampire?

She did. It took her some time, but ... she trusted me.

[Maybe when sometimes she shouldn't have.]

And she loved me, at that point. She's never really been good at letting go of people she loves.

No, she hasn't.

( Even when she knows the person isn't right for her. Like Matt Donovan. )

You still mean something to her. Both of you do. Can I... You know how it must look from our perspective. She was with you, then she was with your brother. How did that transpire?

[Stefan Salvatore is not going to tell Elena's father about the sire bond.

He's not gonna. It's just not going to be a conversation he's going to have today. So Stefan is going to try and look at it from Elena's perspective.]

I wasn't the person that she needed. What she needed wasn't something I could offer. But Damon could. It wasn't easy, and I didn't really understand it at the time, but ... we figured out how to be friends again, eventually.

And then, she ended up needing something different from Damon, too.

( Such is life. )

What stopped Klaus from targeting Elena for good?

He had a daughter of his own.

[That's not the real answer, not really. The real answer is that she became a vampire, but again, he's not trying to drop bombs and really Hope is the thing that caused Klaus to change.]

And had other priorities.

Well. At least he left Elena alone. ( Still, no answer really satisfies. ) Miranda needs time. With you, with everything. Even hearing about it word for word, it still feels like we're just being told a story. And our daughter's sometimes at the center. ( But, let's find a more pleasant topic. Because Stefan has humanity and is a person and is a vampire. ) How did you meet Buffy? And she's a vampire slayer?

It's also a lot to digest. And honestly, I lived it and some of it still doesn't make sense to me.

[So it's perfectly fine if he and Miranda are constantly feeling like they're catching up. There's a lot that happened, and some things that are hard to talk about.

When the conversation switches to Buffy, however, he smiles.]

We met speed dating, actually. I didn't know she was a Slayer and she didn't know I was a vampire. Though we did discover that rather quickly.

We don't need to make sense of all of it.

( Even if they were given maps and diagrams, it still wouldn't make sense to them, which is why he tries to really get to know Stefan.

He lands a joke, first, like two guys shooting the breeze. )

She Googled you?

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