you'll find me here forever ➳ kol mikaelson [ the vampire diaries ]

☆ 5.16 ~ broken

i am damaged at best, like you've already figured out i'm fallin' apart, i'm barely breathing
with a broken heart that's still beating
in the pain there is healing
~ lifehouse, broken

20 comments until next chapter
question of the chapter: how would you like to see lydia and kol get back together? (i'm running out of questions lol)

Stefan didn't know what to expect when he got a call from Lydia three days later, inviting him back to the same spot in the garden. She went radio silent for two days, ignoring his texts and calls. Stefan was tempted to show up, but he didn't want to overstep Lydia's boundaries. He was hoping that she might be a little better. He didn't know what her day to day schedule looked like, but he knew that she had some form of therapy. Stefan remembered that she went to therapy after Jace and it did help for a little bit. Also around that time, Lydia found out the truth about having, including what she was, left Mystic Falls, and started dating Kol. He couldn't say which helped her the most, but he hoped it wasn't the last option.

Maybe it was because Lydia didn't try to kill him, but Stefan didn't understand how Kol could just forget about her so easily. From what Stefan knew, Kol hadn't made contact with her. None of them had. Rebekah, Elijah, Klaus, or Kol. Stefan understood why they would be upset, but he thought that they could go easy on her for a bit. Her humanity was off when she tried to kill them, and she was that way because of them. Not to mention that Lydia had forgiven them for quite a bit. Aside from Kol, all three of them had either killed someone Lydia loved or tried to.

When he first saw her, his heart nearly sank into his chest. She didn't look any better. In fact, she looked worse. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which wasn't like her. Lydia hated having her hair up, claiming that the bands were too tight and it would make her head hurt. Under her eyes were dark, her skin was more pale than it was before, her lips were dry and cracked, and despite it being quite warm out as it was only the early evening, she was shaking slightly like she was cold.

"Stefan," Lydia looked up at him, smiling widely when she saw him. She stood up from the wooden bench, coming around to give Stefan a warm hug, which was surprising to him. He got more of a welcome now than he did before."Thanks for coming. I'm sorry that I kind of scared you the other day."

"Ah, don't worry about it," Stefan dismissed, making sure to speak so that Lydia didn't catch his initial shock.

"When do I not worry?" Lydia almost joked, slipping back into the seat where she previously was with Stefan sitting in front of her."I was just having a. . . Moment the other day."

"I've turned it off before, I know exactly what you mean," Stefan reminded her."So, what did you ask me here for?"

Lydia grimaced as she folded her hands and placed them on the table."My therapist recommended that I reach out to you. Said that I wouldn't feel better until I saw you and made sure everything was okay."