BORN TO DIE, stefan salvatore [1]

43 - THE END OF THE AFFAIR

BORN TO DIE
THE END OF THE AFFAIR

MADELEINE LAY AWAKE THAT NIGHT, UNABLE TO SCRATCH STEFAN'S FACE FROM HER BRAIN. He looked so different. He was the same person, but his aura had changed. He didn't feel the same as he did before. Madeleine couldn't explain it. Maybe she could read auras in a similar way to her mother. She always expected auras to be shields of colour like she'd read about but it wasn't. It was all rooted in her gut. She could just sense something about people. She didn't know if it was their intentions or their moral alignment but she could feel something.

When she first met Stefan, he felt like a candle in the dark. He felt like a sunset on the ocean. A flicker of light battling against an all consuming darkness. But where that darkness should've been what Madeleine felt, warning her to stay away, the strongest force came from that little ball of light. That's how she knew she could trust him, she could feel his goodness and gentleness in her bones. Everyone likes to say she's a bad judge of character, but she refused to believe she was wrong about Stefan.

Madeleine had gotten up early, unable to shake her feelings. She sat in silence at the coffee table with a cardigan wrapped tightly around her body and a cup of coffee in her hands.

Theo was still asleep on the coach so she had to be quiet, but Madeleine didn't mind, she needed some silence.

Theo stirred in the early morning hours. He picked open an eye, and groaned when he saw that Madeleine was already up. He pushed himself to his feet, stumbling with half open eyes. "Morning."

"Morning." Madeleine greeted as she sipped her coffee.

Theo poured his own cup. "You look sombre."

"I'm not sombre."

"You are and it's depressing me. What's up?" The boy turned around and rested against the counter.

Madeleine sighed. "Just Stefan."

"He okay?"

"If you mean slaughtering a bunch of werewolves to build Klaus a hybrid army, yeah he's fine."

"What about the whole phone call thing?"

"What do you mean?"

Theo took a big gulp of coffee. "I thought you said that his call was a cry for help from the depths of his humanity."

"It was." Madeleine insisted, despite the little niggle of doubt. The blonde ran a hand over her face. "I just don't know what to do."

The front door opened unexpectedly. "Never fear, Damon is here."

Madeleine craned her head. "You can't just invite yourself in like this."

"I totally can." Damon said. Ever since he was invited in by Madeleine months ago, there was nothing stopping him from coming and going, but still Madeleine expected boundaries.