Rose

*AGE CHANGE FROM 12 to 14; Birthday no longer on Founder's Day* 

Emma was in a deep, peaceful slumber when she was woken up by a knock on her bedroom door. Jumping from the sudden noise, she lifted her head up and glanced at her clock, attempting to read the time through her major bedhead. Moving her brown hair out of the way, the time read 8:10 a.m. Again, there was another knock on her door.

"What?" she called out, reluctantly tossing the covers to the side and sitting up. As the door opened, Emma noticed that she was still in the dress she wore yesterday for the masquerade.

"Hey." Jeremy greeted, entering the young Gilbert's room and gaining her attention. "Have you seen Elena?"

Emma's eyebrows furrowed and gestured around herself. "Jer, as you can see, I just woke up. I haven't seen you until this moment so why would you think I've seen Elena?"

Rolling his eyes, Jeremy crossed his arms. "I understand that, but I didn't see her come home last night and her bed is made."

"Well, maybe she's with Stefan or something at school already." Emma said, letting out a long yawn. Stretching her arms, she got out of her bed and walked over to her dresser. "Let me get dressed and we can go."

"Fine." Jeremy said and left Emma's room.

Thirty minutes later, due to her cast, Emma walked downstairs dressed in jeans and a t-shirt she got while she lived with Uncle John. Going to the kitchen, she quickly made herself a small breakfast and put her lunch together with her one hand as Jeremy waited impatiently by the front door.

"Hurry up!"

Rolling her eyes, Emma grabbed her backpack and met up with Jeremy. "Coming." she said, and the two drove to their school. Once they got there, their first thought was to go to Stefan's locker, which was one of the most likely places he and Elena would hang out together.

"Stefan!" Emma called, smiling at Stefan as he closed his locker.

Stefan smile back and gave the girl a side hug as the three walked through the teenage infested crowd. "Hey, how's the arm?"

"Couldn't be better." Emma said, with a half-hearted smile.

"Look, man, Elena's gotta let me know if I'm supposed to cover for her. I mean, Jenna's cool with the two of you, but you guys are pushing it." Jeremy said right of the bat.

Confused, Stefan looked down at Emma for answers but only saw that she was as well waiting for his response. "What are you talking about?"

Jeremy cheekily smiled. "You and Elena. Look, I'm glad you guys are back together, but if she's gonna sleep over-"

"Wait, wait." Stefan interrupted, causing the trio to stop in the middle of the hall. "We're not back together."

The Gilbert siblings glanced at each other with their eyebrows furrowed.

"So she didn't stay with you last night?" Jeremy asked.

Stefan shook his head and adjusted his backpack on his shoulder. "No, I mean I saw her at the party but that was it. She didn't sleep over."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked, thinking back to this morning. "She wasn't at home this morning and Jeremy said her bed wasn't slept in."

"And Mrs. Lockwood said that her car was still in the driveway." Jeremy finished informing the vampire.

Emma looked at Jeremy at his words. "Hey, you never told me that."

Jeremy shrugged. "It didn't seem to matter before."

Looking at the two males, Emma said, "So, if she wasn't at home or with you, Stefan, then where's Elena?"

Silence went over the three as they thought of all the possibilities as to where the doppelganger could be. Though, they all came to an end, not being able to think of anything. That was until Stefan had one name come to mind.

"I need to talk to Damon." he said, walking away from Emma and Jeremy. "Don't worry, we'll find her."

After Stefan's figure was out of sight, Emma turned to her brother. "Do you think she's in trouble?" she asked, an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach. From her recent experiences, usually someone was missing, they were most likely taken by a bad guy.

"I doubt it." Jeremy said, slinging an arm around Emma's shoulders. "Katherine's in the tomb. How can there be anyone else out for her?"

Emma completed his reasoning before nodding. "Yeah, you're right." she said, dismissing her earlier thoughts. As they walked, the bell rang. "Gotta get to class." Waving bye, she made her way to class.

Entering the classroom, she went to her desk and sat down, taking out the her notebook and pencil. Emma glanced around the room, seeing the other students talking amongst themselves. She frowned and looked down at her lap. Oh, how she longed to be able to do that. To have at least one friend to talk to before and after class. Sure she had Elena, Jeremy and the others but it wasn't the same. She didn't have that one person she could connect to.

"Whoa, what happened to you?"

Snapping out of her thoughts, Emma turned to the source of the voice to see Jared in the seat next to her's.

"Oh, I, uh, accidentally fell down some stairs. Um, what are you doing here?" she asked, confusion filling her mind.

Jared smiled and took out a piece of paper. "Well, I got my classes switched." He handed to the paper to her.

Taking it from his hands, Emma looked at the paper, seeing all his new classes. It turned out that he had almost the same classes as hers besides two classes.

"No way, we have a lot of classes together." she noted, handing the paper back to him.

"Awesome. Now we can hang out more before our date."

Emma almost choked on her own spit. Date? What date? She had to think for a while before remembering their conversation a couple of days ago.

"You forgot, didn't you?" Jared asked, putting his arm on the desk and resting his head on his hand.

Emma shook her head multiple times. "No, no." But the look on Jared's face showed he was not convinced. "Okay, I did. I'm sorry. There's just been so much happening."

"Hey, that's alright. If it's inconvenient, we can change the day." Jared suggested.

The young Gilbert felt bad. Here she was complaining that there was no one there for her and she completely over saw that Jared was. She's been neglecting him this whole time.

"What? No. Friday. Friday for sure." she countered, giving him a smile. He smiled back and played with his pencil. As he did that, Emma had an idea pop in her head. "Would you- would you like to hang out after class?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice." Jared responded, facing forward when the teacher came into the room.

Emma faced the teacher as well, butterflies going crazy inside her stomach.

~~~~♡~~~~  

The bell rang and everyone packed up their stuff to leave.

"Great, another test to study for." Emma complained as she and Jared walked out the classroom door.

Jared sighed, also disappointed about their teacher's news. "You know, I had no idea English had this many tests."

"Exactly! Why can't we just read a book and be done?" Emma said, waving her arms to emphasize her point. They both laughed a little and continued walking, talking about whatever came to mind. That was until Emma saw Stefan and Bonnie in a corner, talking. "Actually, is it okay if we hang out at lunch?"

Jared's eyebrows furrowed in confusion but nonetheless agreed and parted from the girl.

"Hey, guys." Emma greeted, walking up to the two. "Any updates?"

Stefan shook his head. "No, but I'm gonna try talking to Katherine."

Emma's eyes widened in shock. "Katherine?!" she whispered loudly. "That- that bitch?"

"Emma." Bonnie said, giving the Gilbert a look.

"What? She is! Stefan why would you talk to her? She won't say anything to you," Emma asked, crossing her arms.

Stefan shrugged sharply, frustration running through him. "Because, Emma. I have no idea who has Elena or where she is. This is my best chance to know."

The three stood there, looking at each other with defeated looks.

"What if," Bonnie began, raising interest in the other two. "there was another way to find her?" And she preceded to tell them her plan and what she needed.

Meeting in Alaric's classroom, Jeremy set down a map of Mystic Falls as Emma set down the candles she found in the janitors closet.

"So, how does this work?" Jeremy asked, observing Bonnie light both candles.

"I'll use one of your blood to draw the energy for the tracking spell. You guys are blood-related. It'll make the connection stronger. I just need one of you to do it." Bonnie explained.

Stefan entered the room, closing the door behind him. "Alaric said we need to be gone in 10 minutes. I got his weapons. He stocked me up." he informed, setting a big bag on Alaric's desk.

"Are you ready?" Bonnie asked, looking between the siblings.

"Emma, let me do it." Jeremy said, already lifting his shirt sleeve up. Instead of arguing, Emma agreed, only caring that Elena had to be found.

Bonnie grabbed a small knife and brought it along his hand, blood forming along the cut. Jeremy hissed in pain and clutched his hand into a fist, letting drops of blood fall on the map. Emma noticed Stefan look uncomfortably away at the sight. Bonnie then closed her eyes in concentration and began to chant. The blood on the map mushed together and started to move. Everyone looked up at Bonnie in shock of her magic capability. The blood stopped, around the area of two towns.

"There." Bonnie said, pointing her finger at the spot. "She's there."

"That's 300 hundred miles away." Emma said, saddened to know that Elena wasn't even in Mystic Falls in the first place.

Stefan looked up from the map. "Bonnie, we need a more exact location than that."

"That's as close as I can get." Bonnie said, feeling bad.

"We can map it, get an aerial view. It'll show us what's around there, help us narrow down the area." Jeremy suggested after thinking for a while.

"Perfect." Stefan said, getting up from his position at the table to get that bag of weapons. "Call me with whatever you find."

Jeremy made the move to follow. "I'm coming too."

Lifting the bag on his shoulder, Stefan turned to Jeremy with a disapproved look. "No, Jeremy, you're not."

As the two fought, Emma saw a new blood drop on the map and looked to see Bonnie bleeding from her nose.

"Bonnie." she whispered, earning Bonnie's attention as the witch wiped the blood away. Bonnie lifted a shaky finger to her lips, signaling to not say anything about it.

"But you can't do this alone." Jeremy argued, standing his ground.

At that, Damon opened the classroom door. "He's not. Let's go."

"You're coming with me?" Stefan asked, a little surprised that his older brother would actually want to help.

Damon had a face of determination. "It's Elena."

The brother's made the move to leave, but were stopped when Emma spoke.

"Please, bring her home." she said, clutching her fists.

They looked over and nodded, making a silent promise they won't break.

~~~~♡~~~~  

"Bye! Don't have too much fun!" Emma called out as Alaric and Jenna got into the car to leave. Bonnie stood behind her and once the car was gone, Emma closed the door and turned to the older girl. "So, before making our way upstairs, can we talk about what happened earlier. At school?"

Bonnie shrugged and picked up her bag. "There's nothing to talk about, Emma. I did the spell and that was it."

"But-"

"That was it." Bonnie snapped, and left the girl downstairs.

Ever since Founder's Day, their relationship was never the same. It was either Bonnie didn't trust the Salvatores like Emma did or that Emma didn't trust Bonnie. Before, they would talk about anything but now, it was awkward small talk or silence.

Emma trudged up the stairs to Jeremy's room after thinking for some time. Though, as her foot touched the first step, she felt light headed. She swayed from side to side while clutching her head from a pang of pain. Squeezing her eyes shut, an image flashed in her mind. It was fast but Emma was able to make out a man, wearing a suit. Another image, of a white house surrounded by trees. And with that, the pain was gone, the dizziness was gone. It was as if nothing had happened.

It certainly left the girl confused. "What the hell was that?" she whispered to herself.

She shrugged off the strange event, leaving the problem for later. She continued her way up to Jeremy's room slower, uncertain if something else might happen. When Emma arrived, she saw Bonnie searching frantically through the grimoire.

"What's going on?" she asked, taking a seat next to Jeremy on his bed.

"There's something," Bonnie began, opening a notebook. "I want to try. Someone go get Elena's hairbrush and candle." she instructed, opening a sharpie and writing something on the notebook paper.

Jeremy and Emma shared a look between each other and they both went off getting the two things that Bonnie needed; Jeremy had gotten the candle while Emma got the hairbrush.

As the two set down the items on the bed, Jeremy gave Bonnie a questioning look, lighting the candle. "What are these for?"

Bonnie crumbled the piece of paper she was writing on in her hands. "I know it's crazy, I might be able to get her a message."

The siblings looked at Bonnie with fascination as she held the ball of paper in her palm over the lit candle. The Bennett witch mumbled a spell, her eyes closed in concentration. The paper slowly rose from her hand and lit on fire. But as it began to disappear into thin air, blood slowly dripped from Bonnie's nose, raising alarm to Emma and Jeremy.

"Bonnie, stop." Jeremy said, trying to shake Bonnie out of her trance. She squeezed her eyes tighter and the ball of paper vanished.

Bonnie opened her eyes, a smile on her face as fragments of the paper floated down on Jeremy's bed.

"Bonnie? Are you okay?" Emma asked, laying a hand on Bonnie's arm. The witch made no movement, only staring at the wall. That was until Bonnie fell backwards on Jeremy's bed, unconscious.

"Bonnie!" Both siblings yelled, peering down at her exhausted form.

~~~~♡~~~~  

"No, she's fine." Emma said into the receiver, standing in the kitchen as Jeremy got Bonnie a glass of water. The Bennett witch woke up a a few minutes after she passed out, sending relief through the Gilberts.

"She better. That Bennett is our only witch and those are very hard to come by these days." Damon responded through the receiver.

Emma blew air out, sending strands of hair out of her face. "Well, what do you expect? Magic is hard and it probably wears her down."

"Like I said before, she's a Bennett, a decedent of Emily Bennett. She should already be this powerful witch."

"Damon, Bonnie found out not that long ago that she was a witch. Give her time." Emma countered, instinctively defending the witch.

She heard a sigh on the other line. "I'll try. Listen, we're almost there."

Emma tensed at his words, feeling anxiety fill her. "Good, I hope it doesn't take you too long to find her."

"We won't. Jeremy told us about this house that was in the area where the spell said."

The girl instantly thought of the house she saw earlier in her. . . head. "A-a house?" she asked, picking at the cast with her fingers.

"Yeah, a white house. It's going to be really easy finding it considering it's in the middle of nowhere."

Emma nodded as she played with her nails, processing the information she was given. There are a lot of houses these days. It just happens to be a coincidence that Elena was being held in a white house. Right?

"Little Gilbert, you okay?"

"Oh, yeah. Just bring her back, okay?" Emma said, after snapping out of her lost state.

"Sure thing. Bye."

"Bye." She hung up her phone and quickly made her way back upstairs. When she entered Jeremy's bedroom, she saw Bonnie sitting up and Jeremy next to her. "Hey, Bon. How are you doing?"

Bonnie smiled at the girl. "Fine, thanks." Emma smiled back, taking a seat on the corner of Jeremy's bed. A short silence blanketed over the trio before Bonnie broke it again. "Emma, listen. I'm sorry. For everything. Founder's Day, the carnival, earlier today." she said, with tears forming on the brims of her eyes.

Leaning forward, Emma reached out and rested a comforting hand on Bonnie's lap. "It's okay, Bon. It's okay." she said, happy that she and Bonnie's friendship wasn't over. Emma looked over at Jeremy and remembered what Damon said about the house. "Jer, Damon said that he and Stefan are almost there and he said something about a house?"

Jeremy nodded and took out his phone. "Yeah, I found it around the spot on the map. Here." he said, handing the device to her.

Emma took it out of his hands and looked at the house. It was exactly how it looked in her whatever it was called. There was something definitely wrong.

"Thanks." she said, handing it back and leaving the room to her own.

Taking her laptop, she sat on her bed and opened a window on the laptop. Going on Google, she tried to think of something to search. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a while, having some trouble.

When images appear in your mind.Emma shook her head and deleted the sentence.Pictures in your head."No." Emma whispered, deleting that sentence as well. There was no normal way to put what happened into words. As she thought, there was one word that came to mind.Visions

The next sites Emma visited had a bunch of jumbled information.

dream like statetranceoutlooksspiritualsupernatural

Emma paused at that word. Supernatural. Was there a chance she could have some sort of mystical power? She couldn't stop looking at the word. It's impossible. No. She was not supernatural or spiritual. That's crazy. She was just regular, normal Emma Gilbert. . . who was related to a doppelganger of an evil vampire. She needed more information. For the next hour minutes, Emma looked at other sites, finding out how visions came and how to interpret them. There was one particular website that went through step by step.

The sound of the front door closing interrupted her research. Getting up from her bed, Emma exited her room and entered the hall only to see Elena climbing the stairs.

"Elena!" Emma shouted, running forward and into Elena's arms after she made it to the second floor. "Oh, my gosh, Elena, are you okay?" she asked, pulling away and looking up at Elena.

The older Gilbert smiled and nodded. "I'm fine."

From behind them, Jeremy and Bonnie entered, both with surprised and happy expressions. Emma stepped away and Bonnie hugged Elena.

"I got your message." Elena whispered.

Bonnie pulled away and it was Jeremy's turn for a hug. Emma smiled as Jeremy hugged their older sister tightly, her own tears starting to form.

"So," Jeremy began, pulling away. "What the hell happened?" he said with a smile.

Elena let out a chuckle and went on to explain how she was captured. She mentioned that the two vampires that took her, Rose and Trevor, tried to use her as payment to another vampire.

"Wow, that's intense." Emma commented, crossing her arms. "What was the other vampire's name?"

"Elijah. He was fancy. Wore a suit."

Emma's posture straightened at the information. "Was it grey?"

Elena's eyebrows furrowed. "I guess. What does the color of his suit have to do with anything?"

"Well, I just wanted to know." Emma said, failing at the attempt to come up with an excuse. "Uh, I need to do something." she said, leaving the group and closing the door to her room.

She opened her laptop and went back to that one particular website.

Eager to try it out, Emma grabbed two candles and placed them on the floor. Also grabbing a lighter, she sat down on the ground and lit the candles. Following the instructions, she crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and slowly breathed through her nose. She focused on the two images that appeared in her mind earlier that day. She sat there for 10 minutes with nothing happening.

Emma huffed air out and checked the website again from the floor. "Am I doing this right?" she asked herself, scrolling down the page. After rechecking the instructions, she made one last attempt. "Okay, Emma, you got this."

She positioned herself on the floor again and breathed. No matter what, she focused on the two images with her eyes closed and and legs folded. It was when she felt lightheaded again, that Emma saw something.

Pinned to a door with a large piece of wood pierced in their chest, was the vampire that wanted Elena, Elijah. His face was gray with black veins all over his face. Just then, he started to move. His eyes opened and his head lifted up. The black veins disappeared and his face returned to it's normal color. Elijah lifted a hand up and griped the piece of wood. He pulled it out of his chest and tossed it to the side.Emma opened her eyes with a gasp. She smiled, feeling excitement that she actually accomplished getting it to work.

"I did it." she whispered, clutching her fists. But as soon as the happiness arrived, it went away. "Oh, my god." she said, eyes wide. "He's alive.