Chapter Text
It was supposed to be an innocent task; Jenna had asked for her help looking through some boxes. Founders Day was coming up, and there were a few things that were needed from the Gilbert family that were in storage.
Elena put down the last box with a huff. "Why did we have to bring out all the boxes?" Elena asked her aunt as she opened the box in front of her, "Mrs. Lockwood said she needed one of the old Gilbert artifacts for the Founders Day Parade. As for why we have to look through all the boxes, it's because I don't know which one it was in." Jenna explained.
"So we have to look through all of them," Elena sighed, pulling out some of the box's contents, which mostly consisted of yellowed journals, which she placed to the side as she continued looking through the box. A few moments of silence passed between them as they both continued to look through the boxes before Elena broke the silence. "What is it that Carol needs exactly, Jenna? Because all that I can find here are just a bunch of old journals?" Elena asked, grabbing another journal, intending to put it in the pile with the others before she paused, noticing the initials etched onto the front. 'E.G.'.
Elena furrowed her brows, missing Jenna's response as she looked at the journal; for some unknown reason, Elena had felt a sense of dread wash over her the more she looked at it. Elena was jerked out of her trance at the sound of her aunt's voice. "Got it!" Elena shook her head as she pried her gaze away from the journal before turning towards her aunt, who appeared to have found what they were looking for. Jenna held up a small, ornately carved wooden box. “! I'll just head over to the Lockwoods to hand this over. Don't worry about cleaning this up; I'll do it when I get back," Jenna said as she made her way to the door.
Elena nodded absentmindedly, her gaze returning to the journal in her hands. She opened the journal, trying to find more clues to who it belonged to; she hitched as she read the name on the first page before she quickly shut it closed in a panic. She took a deep breath, trying to slow down her beating heart. "Come on, Elena, get a grip; something like this is totally normal. Ancestors are likely to have similar names," she scolded herself.
Elena opened the journal again. She did notice a folded piece of paper but had ignored it for now. Elena looked over the name written in perfect cursive on the first page. 'Elena M. Gilbert.' Her fingers trembled slightly as they brushed over the ink, still stark even after all these years. Elena M. Gilbert. It wasn’t just the name—it was the handwriting. Neat, elegant, and familiar, "Don't be so paranoid, Elena; it's just a journal.' Elena muttered to herself before slowly turning over to the next page.
The first thing she took note of was the date, '12 Mars, 1911'; the second thing she noticed was that the journal seemed to be written in French. She frowned as she flipped to the next page, skimming through the contents, also in French. Skimming through the rest of the journal, she concluded that everything was written in French. As she kept staring at the words, she couldn't help the unsettling feeling creeping up in her chest.
It wasn't that the entries were written in French that unsettled her; it's the fact that the handwriting is so eerily similar to hers. Elena then shut the journal as if remembering something important. With the journal in hand, she made her way up to her room.
Entering her room, Elena shut the door behind her as she placed the journal in her hands onto the bed before kneeling down to grab something she had hidden under her bed. Seeing that she grabbed what she was looking for, her old journal, Elena then climbed onto her bed, placing the two journals next to each other. She remembered when she was younger she used to write some of her old entries in French, as a sort of secret code that only she could understand.
Elena then carefully opened the two journals side by side, her breath catching in her throat as she compared the handwriting.
It was uncanny.
Her old journal—one she hadn’t written in for nearly a year—had her slightly looped, slanted cursive. She’d always had neat handwriting; her teachers used to compliment it. But the entries in the older journal, written by Elena M. Gilbert, mirrored hers almost perfectly. The same flourishes on the fs and gs. The same wide spacing between words. Even the way the ts were crossed—light, deliberate strokes just above the stem—matched hers.
She shut her old journal, placing it on her bedside table, and picked up the older book, which was still open on a random page. Leaning back against her pillows, she slowly read through the contents, mentally translating it.
'2 Avril 1911
Je l’ai recroisé aujourd’hui sur la place du village. Samantha m’avait dit de garder mes distances avec lui, bien que je ne sache pas pourquoi elle dirait ça. Nik ne semble pas être une mauvaise personne.
Il m’a souri comme s’il me connaissait depuis toujours. Il m’a offert une fleur—une gardénia—et l’a glissée derrière mon oreille en me faisant un compliment. J’ai ri, un peu gênée, mais je l’ai remerciée avant de lui faire un compliment à mon tour, ce qui l’a fait sourire.
Et quel beau sourire c’était—il ressemblait tellement à un ange.
Nous avons marché un moment sur la place, bavardant de choses et d’autres, avant qu’il ne m’accompagne jusqu’à la maison.'
'April 2, 1911
I saw him again today in the village square. Samantha had told me to keep my distance from him, although I don’t know why she would say that. Nik doesn’t seem like a bad person.
He smiled at me as if he had known me forever. He offered me a flower—a gardenia—and tucked it behind my ear while giving me a compliment. I laughed, a little shyly, but I thanked him and gave him a compliment in return, which made him smile.
And what a beautiful smile it was—he looked so much like an angel.
We walked for a while in the square, chatting about this and that, before he walked me home.'
Elena shut the journal as she finished reading the entry. "Oh my god, it's a diary," she groaned as she covered her face with the book, feeling slightly embarrassed that she had just read someone's diary. It felt like an invasion of privacy. She rolled over to the other side of her bed, trying to clear her thoughts before rolling back to where she left the book. Sitting upright, Elena grabbed the journal while opening the drawer of her bedside table and placing the book in there. Mentally noting she would go through it later. She had other things to focus on. Like 'Miss Mystic Falls.'
But deep down she knew that was just an excuse; the thing unnerved her. It wasn't that she shared the same name as the writer—God knows how common her name is—it's that the handwriting was the same. That's what rattled her. She would probably have a look into the Gilbert registry to figure out who 'Elena M. Gilbert' was.
As she lay in bed, Elena thought back to the entry she had read. Who was 'Nik'? Was one of the questions that had crossed her mind, why did Samantha not want him around the writer? Sighing, Elena curled into herself, feeling the same sense of dread wash over her at the thought of who this 'Nik' person was, the same feeling she had felt when she saw the journal; with that, Elena shut her eyes and drifted to sleep.