ALMOST IS NEVER ENOUGH | TVD [4]

VI • BEST SERVED COLD

six. best served cold

Lockwood Residence

Rosie is slowly pacing around the parlor room of the large mansion, where Stefan is currently still asleep on the couch. From their phone call the previous night, Rosie is curious of what he could have done and spoke to Valerie while they were sent away together. So, she uses telepathy to get into his mind, in which Stefan's dream takes place in the woods of 1874.

A twenty-seven year old Stefan, dressed in the typical attire of the time period, sits beside a young boy dressed in a similar fashion to him. The young man clears his throat and passes the boy a rifle that he was holding.

"Hold the gun. There you go. Now, the first thing you want to do-- bite the paper off the cartridge like this." Stefan bites the cartridge before loading it into the gun, "Hand me that ramrod." The boy passes him the ramrod as simply requested, "There you go. Now, I want you to do it." Stefan, after demonstrating him how to shove down the cartridge with the ramrod, hands both the rifle and the rod to the boy, who does what Stefan did, "Push it all the way down. Perfect."

"How far away can it shoot?" The boy possesses similar soft green eyes just like the young man, along with his own rich light brown locks.

"Well, you see that, uh...You see that tree over there with the bark falling off?" Stefan points toward the distant old tree.

The boy squints as he looks in the far distance and eventually shakes his head in response, "No."

"Pretty far then, huh?"

The boy smiles in determination, "Can I shoot it?"

The young man smiles at him in return and continued to tease him gently, clearly enjoying the moment, "I don't know. Think you're old enough?"

"I'm eleven!"

"I was twelve when I shot my first gun..."

The boy groans, "Dad, I can do it!"

Stefan looks at him with playful judgmental eyes, "You think so?"

"Yeah."

Stefan nods, then clasps the boy, who has just been revealed to be his son, on the shoulder, "Alright. Okay. Let's go find ourselves a deer. Come on."

Stefan walks past the tall trees, and his son trails after him from behind. Stefan stops and raises his gun, "Now, the trick is, never take your eye off the target. Got that?" Stefan turns back to the boy, but his son is suddenly gone, immediately horrifying him with a frown, "Jacob?" He whips around, turning in a circle in search of his son, who is nowhere to be seen, "Jacob! Jacob!" Each call for his son is even more worried than the last.

Stefan, who has unconsciously yelled the boy's name in his sleep repeatedly, jerks awake, remaining on the three-seated couch. Sadly but not surprised, Rosie comes to sit beside him on the couch as he sits up quickly.

"Hey, it's just me." She gently mentioned, truly feeling sorry for him.

Stefan looks clearly uncomfortable and slightly guilty about his own dream, but tries to cover it up in front of her, effortlessly seen by his lover, "Hey."