but oh what a year

[patrols]

Comments

[somanyadjectives]

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.

[founderscouncil]

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?

[somanyadjectives]

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.

[founderscouncil]

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

She accepted you. As a vampire?

[somanyadjectives]

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.

[founderscouncil]

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?

[somanyadjectives]

[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.

[founderscouncil]

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

( Such is life. )

What stopped Klaus from targeting Elena for good?

[somanyadjectives]

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.

[founderscouncil]

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?

[somanyadjectives]

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.

[founderscouncil]

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?

[somanyadjectives]

The supernatural version of that? The Watchers keep an extensive library, and I've had reason to be a bit infamous.

[When he was a much younger vampire. He totally doesn't do those things now. (Check back in three acts.)]

But once it all came out we decided to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

[founderscouncil]

Watchers, like Dawn?

( But he thought she was a grad student in research. )

I knew Miranda in school. Everyone knew everyone in Mystic Falls, but there was nobody like Miranda.

[somanyadjectives]

Exactly like Dawn. They've always been the information arm for the Slayers and kept track of notable vampires.

[Well, maybe not exactly, but close enough.]

There's always those people that just stick out to you in a way that no one else does.

[founderscouncil]

She also stumbled upon what Elena did, maybe not in the same way.

( She doesn't know how their daughter acted. He can imagine. She's always seen the good in people. )

How did Jeremy get involved?

[somanyadjectives]

Completely independent of us. Buffy and I were in Europe. Dawn and Jeremy were on the West Coast. Coincidence.

[Just a funny one.]

Sometimes the world is smaller than you think.

[founderscouncil]

From what we've seen, it felt like he was involved a lot earlier than that. When things happened in high school for Elena with Isobel and Klaus and Katherine. Where was Jeremy?

( Can you tell he can't ask his own son? )

[somanyadjectives]

Oh. Jeremy was here. But he also spent some time in Colorado.

[It's complicated to explain, and Stefan really shouldn't be the one telling him.]

It's ... probably better if you talk to him though.

[founderscouncil]

Yeah, it is. But, I have two kids that trade off handling us with kid gloves. How old are you?

( Back to Stefan, then. )

[somanyadjectives]

[He pauses for a minute, before tipping his head to the side.]

You grew up in Mystic Falls. You heard about the Stefan and Damon Salvatore that "died" in the Fell's Church fire in 1864?

[founderscouncil]

Along with --

( Katherine. And Emily Bennett was her lady in waiting. )

They're you? You didn't die. ...Well.

[somanyadjectives]

Katherine Pierce had been stringing us along for a while. Another fun fact about the people killed in that church - most of them were vampires.

[That being said:]

I didn't know that she had been slipping me vampire blood. I can't speak to what Damon did or didn't know. But our father, Giuseppe, figured out she was a vampire, and dosed me with vervain in order to capture her. Damon and I tried to save her, and to spare himself the shame, our father shot us.

[founderscouncil]

They were?

( That fact didn't get passed down. )

Your father killed you?

[somanyadjectives]

[Stefan nods to both.]

Giuseppe Salvatore was not a very understanding man, to any degree. I didn't realize it until much later but he was quite abusive by today's standards.