THE QUEEN'S CROWN [2]

13 : ASTRAL

        "I don't believe we should be eavesdropping-"

"Shh!" Lily gave the man beside her a shove, glaring at him for speaking because it meant she missed a few seconds of the conversation she eagerly wished to hear all of. "Not everyone has supernatural hearing, so shut up!"

Elijah gave her a dirty look, but she ignored him.

Charlie was talking to Stefan about Alaric, and Lily was listening to her sister's side of the conversation through the ajar front door, but it wasn't as if Charlie seemed to care about who was listening, just as long as she got to say her point. Elijah had managed to speedily pack up their stuff within a few minutes, so by the time he returned to Lily's side, the woman pacing on the porch was already talking to Alaric on Stefan's phone, and Lily knew that unlike her, the vampire could hear both sides of the conversation. Her heart broke for Charlie when she heard her choke up a sob as she told Stefan to put Ric on, and all she wanted to do was take that pain and make it go away.

It wasn't as if Lily was never exceptionally close to Alaric Saltzman. As far as she was concerned, the man was her teacher, and that was as far as their relationship had ever gone. He had shown his favouritism once or twice, letting her retake a test she had failed and covering for her when she was late for class which he wouldn't have done for anyone else in her grade. But Lily always felt that was for Charlie, because she didn't know the man well enough to say that they were anything but teacher and student. They ran in the same group, they knew the same people, but they weren't friends. Yet as Lily stood there with her back to the wall, listening to Charlie's last conversation with someone she loved, Lily felt that familiar pain in her chest, telling her that she wanted to cry. Another person that was dying when they shouldn't.

Esther Mikaelson was the person responsible for what was happening to Alaric. Lily had been between her sister's call to Stefan and Elijah's brief one with Rebekah trying to put the pieces together before it clicked into place, managing to catch enough to see the full picture. Elijah's mother hadn't been as dead as they thought, as she jumped into Rebekah before managing to turn Alaric using Elena into an Original, one different to her children. Lily only knew that the wicked witch of the west was now in Klaus's coffin, and Alaric was saying his final goodbyes instead of completing the transition. If he turned, his alter-ego would come for the Mikaelsons, and by killing them all, it meant the end to all the vampires. Either way, Alaric was lost to them, and so he was going to go out the way he wanted to, instead of the way Esther hoped he would. He would be dead by the end of the night.

"I kinda love you, Ric, you know that right?" She heard Charlie tell the teacher, her voice broken. "And when you find peace and come across Jenna, I want you to hold her and never let her go, okay?"

Whatever was dead after made Elijah frown, his eyes falling to his feet as he listened to Charlie's promise to Alaric, but whatever she was promising, Lily didn't hear it, and she didn't ask the Original what was said either. She waited until she heard the two say their goodbyes before she gave Elijah a sad smile and leaving the house, quietly crossing the porch until she reached her sister on the top step, crying with her phone clenched in one hand. She couldn't say goodbye to Alaric in person, and from what Lily gathered, he had rejected Charlie's desire to use astral projection. Without needing to say a word, Lily sat beside Charlie and wrapped her arms around her, holding her in a way that her older sister had done for her so many times before. She felt her own tears fill her eyes, feeling Charlie's trembles as she sobbed, and Lily just needed her to know that she was here, and she wasn't going anywhere.

They stayed one more night. It was an unspoken agreement. Lily only had her bedding to comfort her in her temporary room, as Elijah even had it arranged for the furniture they wanted to keep to be taken as well, and as she looked around the pretty vacant room, she wondered what else was going to change in the upcoming days. Alaric was dead, Bonnie and Charlie had severed their friendship, Damon still wasn't talking to them, and Louis had a boyfriend. Lily didn't know what going back to Mystic Falls was going to do and for the first time since going to Denver, she realized she was dreading going home. As dramatic as their stay had been, it had also been the breath of fresh air that she had needed. Now, knowing she was going home, made her ache all over again.