MONSTER, stefan salvatore [2]

Fade Into You

CHAPTER 38: FADE INTO YOU

The Door Room

If there was one word to describe how Natalie Saltzman was feeling, it was: bittersweet. For months, she had clung onto the hope of getting home, seeing the people she loved, and it was finally done. But, the thought of what was happening to Bonnie, had she had been stuck alone with Kai the prison world, without them knowing if she was alive or not, that made her feel incredibly guilty every time she felt the happiness inside herself.

Still, even if the guilt weighed down on her, it was cancelled out by the thought of how wonderful it would be to reunite with everybody else. When she had walked into her, Caroline, Elena and Bonnie's dorm room, she couldn't help but smile when she saw that the covers were still the same, only seeming to have been washed. That was all Caroline, no doubt. 

She didn't know where her sister and blonde best friend had run off to, barely even being able to talk to Damon because he was holding onto her so tightly. So, what had been happening while she was gone was a bit of a blur, or a complete and total mystery. 

But, she took advantage of that they weren't there and planned an even better return than if they been there. She had found some snacks stashed away by one of them (probably Elena, seeing as they were her favorite), and decided to find the book she had been reading before she died, trying to remember everything that had happened in it as she gnawed on the candy. 

She could hear their voices faintly from outside the door, opting to not use her vampire hearing to listen to what they were saying. She could barely keep herself from squealing and just opening the door and throwing herself at them. She was sure that Damon hadn't told anyone anything about her coming home, mostly because she had whispered to him that she wanted to tell them herself. 

She could hear Caroline giggling at something Elena was saying as she pushed the door open, they didn't notice her at first, their gazes being stuck exlusively at one another as they dropped their bags by the door. 

It only took a moment before they turned to look at the rest of the room, causing Natalie to raise her chin up and send them a small smile as they froze in their place, not moving a muscle as they stared at her in disbelief. "Hey."

At the sound of her whispering the greeting softly, they started laughing, smiles wide on their faces as they rushed towards where she was sitting on her bed. Not a word was said as they threw themselves onto her, laughs filling the room as the three girls held onto one another as they wriggled on the a-bit-too-small-for-all-of-them bed, causing Elena to almost fall off, luckily they were all vampires so they saved her the humiliation. 

"How- how are you here?" Caroline asked, as if she hadn't heard anything about Damon and what happened to him, in which Natalie almost had to be mentioned. "Damon said you and Bonnie were dead, that he was alone in the weird prison place with some sociopath."

"He said that?" Natalie frowned, starting a list of things she was going to kick Damon's ass for, she was sure more things would appear eventually. "That lying bastard. Bonnie and I were unable to get out, but we got him out. Then Bonnie sacrificed herself... for me."

"Wait, Bonnie's alive too?" Elena asked, those words being the ones who stuck out to her the most. First, Damon was back (which she was still not 100% sure how she was supposed to feel about), her twin sister was right by her for the first time in months, and then she found out that her best friend was alive. "Okay, I'm pretty sure this is the best day of my life."

Natalie smiled softly at the grin on her sister's face, finding them to almost look like they were happier than she had seen them in for years. "Oh, I love you guys so much. You have no idea how much I missed you, all of you."