Chapter Text
# Chapter One
## The Day Before
### Elena
**Sunday**
Dear Diary,
School starts tomorrow, which everyone seems to think is a good thing.
Apparently routine helps.
That's what Jenna said this morning while standing in the kitchen in her pajamas at eleven and drinking what I'm pretty sure was yesterday's coffee. I didn't point out the irony. She looked exhausted enough without me starting something.
So tomorrow I get to go back to Mystic Falls High and find out exactly how many different versions of *I'm so sorry* one school can produce.
I'm guessing a lot.
Bonnie will be normal. Caroline will try to be normal so hard that she'll make it weird. Matt will probably look at me like he wants to hug me and doesn't know if he's allowed. Everyone else will stare when they think I'm not looking.
I don't want to go.
I also don't want to stay here.
There's nothing here I want to look at either.
Elena stopped and chewed on the end of her pen.
There were footsteps downstairs. She could tell who it was without getting up.
Evan.
He'd been moving around since sometime before nine. She knew because he'd knocked on her door at nine-thirty and asked whether she was awake.
She'd told him no.
He'd said, “Okay,” and walked away.
Asshole.
She looked at the word and decided it wasn't strong enough.
*Evan is an asshole.*
Better.
*Evan is a creepy, freakishly well-adjusted asshole and I'm starting to wonder if we were actually raised by the same people.*
There.
Because seriously, what the fuck was wrong with him?
Their parents had died.
Their parents.
Not some distant relative they saw twice a year. Not somebody who'd been sick forever and everyone had been expecting it. Mom and Dad had left the house one day and never come home, and somehow Evan had turned the whole thing into a fucking administrative project.
There were folders on the dining-room table now.
Actual folders.
He'd labeled them.
Elena hated those folders.
Insurance.
Bank.
School.
Medical.
Things Elena didn't want to know existed.
Evan knew.
Of course Evan knew.
He knew who needed calling. He knew what Jenna had forgotten. He knew when something had to be mailed. He knew what Jeremy was doing, or at least he tried to. He knew when they were running out of milk.
Their parents were dead and Evan fucking knew when they were running out of milk.
Yesterday Jenna had spent almost an hour looking for some document she was convinced she'd lost. She'd been getting more and more upset until Evan walked in, listened to her for about thirty seconds, opened one of his stupid folders and handed it to her.
Then he'd made her tea.
Because apparently he was eighty.
And Jenna had hugged him.
Elena had watched from the stairs and wanted to scream.
It wasn't fair.
Jenna was supposed to be taking care of them. She was the adult. She was supposed to know what forms went where and what needed signing and whether there was enough food in the house.
Instead Evan had apparently decided he was everybody's father now.
And everyone was letting him.
Worse, they seemed grateful.
Elena pressed her pen harder against the paper.
Jeremy was a mess.
At least Jeremy made sense.
He was drinking. He was angry. Half the time he looked like he hadn't slept. He snapped at Jenna and disappeared for hours and acted like every question was an accusation.
It was horrible.
But it was normal.
Their parents were dead. Of course Jeremy was fucked up.
Elena was fucked up.
Jenna was fucked up.
Even John looked like someone had punched a hole through him at the funeral.
And then there was Evan.
Evan ate.
Evan slept.
Evan went outside.
Evan made jokes.
Evan remembered things.
He had even laughed with Jeremy two nights ago. Actually laughed. Not the weird little polite laugh people did now because apparently laughing normally in the Gilbert house was disrespectful to the dead.
No. Evan had laughed so hard he'd nearly choked.
Elena had been sitting in the living room.
Neither of them had noticed her.
She'd gone upstairs.
It had made her furious.
How could they do that?
How could Evan do that?
Jeremy was fourteen. Jeremy was a kid and he was a wreck and Evan was supposed to know better than to sit there acting like everything was normal.
Maybe that was what bothered her most.
He made normal look possible.
It wasn't.
Normal had ended on the bridge.
Evan apparently hadn't gotten the message.
She wanted him to stop being so fucking calm.
She wanted him to slam a door.
She wanted him to forget something.
She wanted to hear him shouting at someone on the phone instead of saying, *Yes, I understand,* in that patient voice of his.
She wanted him to look like he'd lost something.
Once—only once—she'd stopped outside his bedroom because she thought she heard something.
She'd stood there listening.
Nothing.
Of course.
She'd walked away angry.
Maybe she wanted proof.
Was that really so unreasonable?
Everyone kept saying people grieved differently, which was the kind of useless thing adults said when they wanted a conversation to end.
There was grieving differently and then there was whatever Evan was doing.
He didn't even make it easy to confront him about it.
If he'd started ordering everyone around, at least Elena could have told him to go fuck himself.
Instead he just did things.
He helped Jenna.
He kept an eye on Jeremy.
He checked on Elena constantly.
That last one was particularly irritating.
Three days ago he'd asked whether she wanted breakfast.
She'd said no.
Ten minutes later he'd asked again because, according to him, coffee didn't qualify.
She'd told him to fuck off.
He had.
Then he'd left toast on the counter anyway.
She'd eaten it because she was hungry.
That didn't make him less annoying.
If anything, it made him worse.
Sometimes she thought Evan liked being needed.
Maybe that was it.
Maybe this whole hyper-capable act was his way of making himself important now that Mom and Dad weren't around.
The thought felt right enough that she wrote it down.
*Maybe he likes this.*
She stared at it.
*Not them being dead. Obviously.*
She added that because even she wasn't accusing him of wanting their parents dead.
But everything afterward?
Being the one Jenna asked for help.
Being the one who knew where everything was.
Being the one checking on Jeremy.
Being the responsible one.
Maybe he liked that.
It would explain a lot.
Four days ago she'd finally said something.
He'd been talking to Jenna about paperwork. Jenna had asked Elena a question, Elena hadn't known the answer, and Evan had.
Of course he had.
He always fucking did now.
She'd said something.
He'd answered.
She'd said something worse.
Then he'd given her that patient look.
That look.
Like he was waiting for a toddler to finish screaming in a supermarket.
“Elena, stop.”
That had done it.
“Do you even care that they're dead?”
He'd gone quiet.
Good.
For once she'd gotten through.
She'd kept going.
“God, Evan, sometimes I think you're fucking heartless.”
His face had changed.
Only slightly, but Elena saw it.
He was hurt.
Good.
At least that was something.
At least she'd finally managed to get a real emotion out of him.
Then he'd looked at her for a few seconds and said, “Okay.”
Just *okay*.
He'd walked away.
She still got angry thinking about it.
Who did that?
Who got called heartless by his own twin sister and just accepted it?
Someone who didn't care enough to argue, apparently.
And then there was the bridge.
Elena's hand stopped.
She didn't want to write about that.
She could remember enough without putting it on paper.
The water.
Her parents.
Waking up afterward.
The horrible moment when she'd understood that she was alive and they weren't.
Everyone kept telling her it wasn't her fault.
Jenna.
Bonnie.
Matt.
Even adults who barely knew what had happened.
Evan was the worst.
He wouldn't even let her talk about it.
The first time she'd tried, she'd started with, “If I hadn't—”
“No.”
She'd stared at him.
“But—”
“No.”
“You don't even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
That had been the whole conversation.
No discussion.
No anger.
No *why*.
Nothing.
As though he could simply decide there was nothing to talk about and that made it true.
Maybe that was easy for him.
Everything seemed easy for Evan now.
The paperwork.
Jenna.
Jeremy.
Mom and Dad.
Even her.
He could put everything into the right folder, make the right phone call, say the right thing and move on to the next problem.
Elena couldn't.
She didn't want to.
Some things shouldn't be that easy.
A knock came at the door.
“Elena?”
She considered ignoring him.
“What?”
“I'm going to the store. Want anything?”
“No.”
“All right.”
His footsteps moved away.
Elena frowned.
She got off the bed and opened the door.
“Evan.”
He looked back from the stairs.
“What?”
“You're supposed to ask again.”
His eyebrows went up. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I might have changed my mind.”
“In the last eight seconds?”
“Do you want me to tell you what I want or not?”
His mouth twitched.
That fucking almost-smile.
“Sure.”
“Ice cream.”
“What kind?”
Elena stared at him.
“You know what kind.”
“I do.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“To see if you did.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed.
Of course he did.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“And don't get the cheap one.”
“Your faith in me is touching.”
“Evan.”
“I'll get the good ice cream.”
“Good.”
She shut the door.
He was still laughing as he went downstairs.
Elena went back to the bed irritated all over again.
Mom and Dad were dead.
School started tomorrow.
Jeremy was falling apart, Jenna barely knew what she was doing, and Evan was downstairs laughing about fucking ice cream.
She picked up her pen.
*Heartless might have been cruel.*
Elena stared at the sentence.
Then crossed out *cruel*.
*Heartless might have been accurate.*
She closed the diary.
---
### Evan
**Sunday**
Dear Diary,
School tomorrow.
Elena doesn't want to go. Jeremy claims he doesn't care. Jenna is trying not to look worried.
I need orange juice.
Evan looked at the sentence.
He'd intended to write more about school, but the orange juice situation was becoming ridiculous.
He added it to the list beside him, then checked the refrigerator because there was always the possibility that he'd missed a carton behind something.
Nothing.
“Jeremy,” he muttered.
He sat down again.
There were still several things he wanted finished before tomorrow. Nothing urgent, thankfully. Most of the important paperwork had finally been dealt with, and the remaining calls could be made during the week. He'd learned quickly that telling people there had been a death in the family produced either astonishing efficiency or twenty minutes of being transferred between departments. There appeared to be no middle ground.
He was tired of hold music.
That might actually be the thing that finally broke him.
Jenna had offered to take over the remaining calls. Evan had told her no.
She'd argued.
He'd won.
Mostly because Jenna had started crying halfway through the argument and then become furious that she was crying, which had rather proved his point.
She needed time.
So did John.
So did Jeremy.
So did Elena, although Elena currently seemed to prefer spending hers being angry at Evan.
He could work with that.
He wasn't thrilled about it.
That was different.
Being called heartless by his sister had hurt. He wasn't going to pretend otherwise in his own diary. There was no audience here to impress.
He'd wanted to snap back.
For about half a second, he'd had several answers available, most of them cruel enough that Elena would probably still be crying.
Then he'd looked at her.
Really looked at her.
Seventeen years old, grieving, angry and doing a terrible job of handling any of it.
So he'd said okay and left.
It had seemed preferable to having a screaming match in front of Jenna.
Elena clearly disagreed.
Fine.
She was allowed to disagree.
She was also being a bitch.
Both things could be true.
Evan wrote that down, considered it, then left it.
*Elena is being a bitch.*
There.
Much better.
He loved her.
She was still being a bitch.
There seemed to be a strange idea that loving someone meant losing the ability to notice when they were behaving badly. Evan had never understood that.
Elena wanted him angry.
That much was obvious.
She kept poking and poking, waiting for him to finally explode at her, and Evan had absolutely no intention of giving her what she wanted.
Especially about the accident.
That subject was closed.
Elena was seventeen.
A child.
There was nothing to blame her for.
End of discussion.
If she wanted to blame herself, Evan couldn't physically stop her. He could refuse to participate.
So he did.
He didn't understand why everyone made grief so complicated. Not the feeling itself. That was complicated whether anyone liked it or not. He missed Mom. He missed Dad. There were moments when he walked into a room expecting one of them to be there and the emptiness caught him before he could prepare for it.
This morning he'd nearly called for Dad before remembering.
That had hurt.
He'd stood in the hallway for a minute, felt terrible, and then gone downstairs because Jenna needed help finding an insurance document.
Apparently Elena considered that suspicious.
Evan considered it Sunday.
There was no point pretending the rest of the world had stopped because two people had died.
It hadn't.
That was the ugly practical part nobody seemed interested in discussing.
People brought food. They sent flowers. They hugged you. They told you to call if you needed anything, which was kind but mostly useless because nobody grieving wanted to make seventeen phone calls assigning chores.
Meanwhile, mail kept arriving.
The bank still existed.
School still existed.
Bills still existed.
Three teenagers still needed food.
And Jenna had gone from being their aunt to their guardian with essentially no warning.
No.
Evan wasn't leaving all of that on her.
She had lost her sister.
John had lost his brother.
They deserved time to actually feel those losses instead of spending every waking hour trying to keep the Gilbert household from collapsing.
Jeremy needed watching too.
That worried Evan more than Elena's anger.
Elena was loud about being miserable. Jeremy was getting quieter.
Quiet could be a problem.
Evan wrote Jeremy's name in the margin and circled it.
He looked at the circle.
Very useful.
Excellent analysis.
He added nothing.
A moment later Jenna appeared in the doorway.
“Are you making another list?”
“No.”
She looked at the paper.
Evan covered it with his hand.
“This is private.”
“You're making another list.”
“I'm writing in my diary.”
“With a shopping list beside it.”
“Multitasking.”
Jenna leaned against the doorframe.
She looked exhausted.
“You know you don't have to keep doing all this.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“Evan.”
He looked up.
There were times when Jenna tried very hard to sound like an authority figure.
This wasn't one of them.
She just looked tired and sad.
Evan put the pen down.
“I know.”
“You're allowed to be upset too.”
“I am upset.”
“You don't act like it.”
Evan sighed.
There it was again.
“Jenna, what exactly would you like me to do? Cry at breakfast? Stop showering?”
“That isn't what I said.”
“I know, but everyone keeps looking at me like I'm doing grief incorrectly.”
“I don't.”
“You just told me I don't act upset.”
Jenna opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
“Fair.”
“Thank you.”
She came into the room and sat on the edge of his bed.
“You've done more than enough.”
Maybe.
Evan wasn't particularly interested in calculating what constituted enough.
“Did you sleep last night?”
Jenna narrowed her eyes.
“That is not an answer.”
“It's a question.”
“You're annoying.”
“Apparently. Elena's been conducting extensive research on the subject.”
That got a reluctant smile.
“Five hours,” Jenna admitted.
“That's terrible.”
“I know.”
“Go take a nap.”
“Evan—”
“The paperwork isn't going anywhere.”
“Neither is mine.”
“I'll do it.”
“You have school tomorrow.”
“Yes, and unless Mystic Falls High has recently become a boarding school, I expect they'll eventually let me come home.”
Jenna shook her head.
“You're impossible.”
“Go to sleep.”
She stood, then stopped at the doorway.
“Evan?”
“Yeah?”
“You really are allowed to tell Elena to back off.”
He knew exactly what she meant.
“I'm aware.”
“Because she's grieving doesn't mean she gets to say whatever she wants.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
Jenna left.
Evan stared at the doorway for a moment.
He appreciated the concern.
He didn't need Jenna fighting this battle.
Elena was angry with him.
Okay.
She resented him for functioning.
Okay.
She thought the fact that he could laugh meant he didn't care about their parents.
Stupid, but okay.
None of it changed what needed doing.
He had paperwork to finish.
Jeremy needed attention.
Jenna needed sleep.
John needed room to grieve his brother without being dragged into every problem in the house.
And Elena needed time.
Preferably time during which she stopped calling Evan heartless, but he'd take what he could get.
He glanced back at the diary.
*Elena is being a bitch.*
Still accurate.
He added:
*I expect she'll eventually stop.*
There.
Patient.
Optimistic.
Possibly delusional.
A few minutes later he grabbed his keys.
He knocked on Elena's door and asked whether she wanted anything from the store.
She said no.
Fine.
He started downstairs.
“Evan.”
Of course.
By the end of the conversation he had been instructed to buy ice cream, specifically expensive ice cream, and had been told to fuck himself.
Normal enough.
He went back to his room long enough to add ice cream to the shopping list.
Underneath it he wrote orange juice.
Then he remembered Jeremy had barely eaten breakfast.
Evan added the cereal Jeremy liked.
He looked over the list.
Ice cream.
Orange juice.
Cereal.
Nothing dramatic.
Good.
He'd had enough dramatic for one summer.
Elena could hate him for a while.
He wouldn't enjoy it, but he could live with it.
If she wanted him to be the villain because he filled out forms, remembered groceries and refused to blame a seventeen-year-old girl for an accident, she was welcome to the story.
He had more important things to worry about.
Evan folded the shopping list, put it in his pocket and headed downstairs.