Try {One | Alaric Saltzman}

Bloodlines

She would have been happy that morning. In fact, she was until she realized Elena didn't come home the night before. Maybe she stayed the night with Stefan, she thought, maybe she wasn't missing.

She ran into something, someone, in the school parking lot. Jeremy. She recognized the car he stopped next to, even if she shouldn't have, and the legs hanging out of it.

"Hey, Mr. Saltzman!" Jeremy called.

Alaric pulled himself out of the car, bringing his attention to him only partly. He nodded at them, a greeting that didn't even allude to what happened the previous night, any like that one since their first drink at the Grill, without a word. And then he turned back to his task.

"I, uh, can't find my ring. I took it off for the gym, and thought I put it... There it is!" Slipping the ring back on his finger, he got back out of the car. "Losing family heirlooms, bad. How's your extra credit coming? You pick a topic yet?"

Jeremy nodded. "Mystic Falls, the Civil War era."

"What's the angle?" He asked.

"My family," he said. "I found a journal of an ancestor who lived in the 1800s. And the Gilberts were one of the original Founding Families of Mystic Falls. So..."

"That sounds good." He looked to the right, he didn't turn to the right, but he looked for long enough for Abigail to know he had seen something that she was hiding. "Abigail, are you-"

Stefan was crossed in front of them. She took off onto the sidewalk without a word, leaving Jeremy and Alaric behind for reasons she would tell them that were different. She did not catch up to him before he entered the morning rush, so she pushed through her classmates as they moved toward the school in one group.

She called his name more than once, but he ignored her. Completely ignored her. Every time.

"Stefan." She was no longer yelling, no, she had returned to her normal volume. "I know you can hear me."

He stopped, giving her time to catch up to him before he turned to face her. "Have you seen Bonnie?"

"Better question." Abigail swayed slightly, still trying to catch her breath. "Have you seen Elena?"

Stefan grabbed her shoulders to move her to the side. "Bonnie!"

Bonnie froze, not facing them until the name that left Abigail's mouth was hers. "Abigail, what is going on?"

"We need your help," Stefan answered the question meant for her. "With a spell."

Shaking her head at Stefan was something Bonnie had done before, but not like this. "Look, I appreciate what you did to help me, but I'm not really ready to dive into it with you just yet."

"Bonnie, it's Elena." Without missing a beat, he added, "She's with Damon."

"What?" Abigail looked up at him. "Why is she with Damon?"

He kept to his pattern of ignoring her. "I have Elena's necklace. I was just hoping you could use it to make some sort of a connection. I just need to know that she's okay."

The frequency of the school bells increased as they gathered around a picnic table. Stefan, sitting across from Abigail and Bonnie, dangled Elena's necklace in front of them. The silver talisman was not as reflective as it used to be, but it still caught the light. Bonnie couldn't take her eyes off of it, he couldn't take his eyes of it, but Abigail couldn't let her eyes linger on it.

"How do you know I can do this?" Bonnie asked.

"Because I've known a few witches over the years," Stefan said. "I've seen what they can do."