Chapter Text
Alana Grace had always known she would die in a car. It was a recurring dream she's had since she was a little girl. Car, storm, bridge, water, darkness. When it finally came she was mere months away from her seventeenth birthday.
She'd gotten into a fight with her foster parents of the month. Jayden Forrester was a creep that agreed to foster an almost seventeen year old girl for exactly one reason. His wife either enabled his predatory nature or was ignorant of it. Either way she couldn't stay there a minute longer.
Maybe stealing their car was a bit much, especially since she's had exactly four driving lessons in it. However it's much easier to focus when you aren't trying to stop a hand on your thigh.
The storm came out of nowhere. One minute the setting sun was lighting the sky a beautiful pinkish orange. The next, it was so dark it could have been midnight. Alana doesn't know at which point she lost control. Just that the hail was so loud and it was so hard to see. When she felt the car go off the road she didn't have it in her to feel anything but ironically satisfied. She knew this would happen, no matter what her many shrinks tried to tell her. Her dreams always came true.
She wakes up on the edge of a riverbank, but not the one she fell into. Not ten feet to her left sits a brunette about her age. They even look similar, not identical but they could be sisters. Maybe they are. Alana's been in the foster system as far back as her memory goes.
"Are you okay?" She asks because this girl is distraught. On her knees screaming and crying 'I can't' over and over. It's honestly a bit annoying.
"My parents! We were in the car and there was a storm. It came out of nowhere. I can't, I can't find them." She's not nearly as clear in her cries but Alana paraphrases.
"Okay, that's. A Lot. I also was in the storm. No parents though. They're long dead. I guess we got lost in the same storm." She says already deciding to tune the crying girl out.
"Not the same storm but that's one of the few differences." A new voice says and it's a boy. Cute in a dorky way, a bit older than them with dark curly hair and a nice smile. "I'm Landon Kirby, I'm, well I guess there's no easy way to say this. I'm the ferryman to the afterlife." As if summoned by his wording a bright white light appears in the horizon of the water. Massive and bright light the Aurora Borealis, Alana couldn't even be sceptical.
Her clothes and hair aren't wet, she doesn't recognise her surroundings. There's no bridge or any cars and the storm is gone.
"Sure. Why not?" Alana sighs wishing she had been able to keep the mint canister full of pre rolled joints that was in her to go bag.
"My Parents. We were in the car, are they."
"At peace. I just got back from dropping them off. They're okay Elena." The crying girl is Elena. Of course, the name everyone had called Alana when they couldn't be bothered actually remembering it. The amount of times she'd had to correct people.
Crying girl really does seem like the prettier, more annoying version of Alana. Because whilst all their features technically match. Deep brown eyes, long and straight medium brown hair, olive complexion and a thin but still curvy frame. Elena is stunning, and Alana is boring. Maybe not boring, rough around the edges maybe. Elena was just in a car accident and looks airbrushed. Alana however knows her jeans are still littered with scorch and ashmarks and she hasn't washed her hair or shaved in the three days she's spent at her latest 'home' the bathroom no doubt has a peep-hole or one way mirror seeing as it's directly next to Jayden's office.
"So, what's your price Charon? I'm afraid I don't have my wallet on me." Also in her to go bag currently caught in a current, or sitting at the river floor.
"Well that's complicated. First things first. Elena Gilbert, meet Alana Grace. You are both set to turn seventeen on June twenty second. Although a few years apart. You both have the same blood type, physical descriptors, personality types and most importantly cause and time of death. On may twenty third you both were in a sudden storm when your car went out of control and off a bridge into water." Elena's hyperventilating and Alana's a little offended that he thinks they have the same personality type.
"Neat. I assume you're going somewhere with this?" Maybe she's being bitchy but this dork is acting like he's explaining the plot of the new Star Wars instead of their literal deaths.
"Right. So, Limbo doesn't exist in the same timeline. So despite dying ten years apart, you both appeared here at the same time. When I died it was technically after both of you, but a lot happened between." He's still moving his hands like he wishes he had a PowerPoint presentation and Alana looks away to Crying girl who's finally stopped. Funnily enough Elena looks as annoyed at how casually Ferryman Landon seems to be geeking out as Alana. "Essentially the entire balance of nature is screwed over at least three dozen times in the span of thirty years all starting with you."
Of course he's looking at Elena. She looks like a deer in the headlights of a truck.
"What? But I'm not anything. I'm a founding family in Mystic Falls, which only matters in Mystic Falls where nothing happens. I didn't do anything special." She's hyperventilating again. Jesus christ girl.
"You're the Petrova Doppelganger. For two thousand years your face has cropped up every few centuries and a lot of chaos comes along with it. Some more than others but being the Doppleganger, it's important and dangerous and you need to be able to handle anything and everything thrown at you." Landon has finally calmed down just in time for Elena to freak out again. Great. Fantastic, no wonder the world goes to shit. Wait a minute.
"She's not gonna stay dead is she? Someone's giving her CPR in her time and she's going to wake up." Alana realises and they both turn to her. Elena crying and Landon smiling the excited geek smile again. It clicks in Alana's head faster than she wants it to. Same birthday, same death day, same death cause. "No, fuck that! I'm staying dead Elena can have her shitshow of a life." The doe eyed girl figures It out a second later and instead of being offended as she should be, hope lights up in her eyes.
"Please, I can't do that. I could barely break up with my boring boyfriend. I won't handle it, not without my Mom and Dad I'll shatter I know I will. I already have. Please, I have a little brother, Jeremy this will destroy him I can't leave him but I don't think I can help him."
"You think I can?"
"You're handling all of this a lot better than I am." She argues gesturing to the afterlife just beyond the horizon and their greyscale surroundings.
"You were orphaned five minutes ago. I've been on my own my entire life, we have entirely different upbringings and I don't know what you're talking about personality types but just because a bunch coincidences line up does not mean I'm going to be the chosen one."
"Less of a chosen one, more of a powerful magical source. Everyone wants the doppleganger for one reason or another." Landon clarifies.
"So she's a human Macguffin. Even better." Alana just looks at Elena like she's crazy. "Who idea even was this?"
"Nature, magic, earth itself. Honestly unclear. I just man the boat, a dark while time works differently here it's usually more crowded. You two are isolated in an almost paused state. Until one of you jumps into the water you're both stuck." Landon puts his hands in his pockets and Alana just can't.
"If we're paused, can you like ferry some other less complicated soul across while we figure this out?" Elena asks with all the kindness of someone who has birds doing her hair every morning.
"Right, yeah. Uh. So to call the ferry you have to offer something of emotional value into the coin purse. I'll feel it and come back as quick as I can." He goes to wander into the woods before turning around. "Uh, I know this sucks for you both but. I lived Elena's version of events before I died. My girlfriend lost her parents at around the same age. Wildly different circumstances but If she wasn't the strongest person I'd ever met I don't think she'd have survived." With that he disappears into the woods.
"No." Alana says before Elena even opens her mouth.
"Your dead anyway what does it matter to you?"
"You're not. Go home!" Alana marches to the dock searching her pockets for literally anything of sentimental value.
"To what? My fourteen year old stoner brother. My parents are gone I have nothing to go back to and based on the several layers of ragged but warm clothes and hastily cleaned mascara and eye-liner under your eyes, neither do you." Bitch. She's right of course fourteen pockets of nothing but stolen cash, a fake ID and lock picks.
"I'm not the one who's not even dead. No one's rescusing me princess. I've been an Orphan my whole life that card doesn't work on me." She knows she getting mad but doesn't care. If Elena can cry for twenty minutes Alana can throw a minor temper tantrum.
Taking off her outer hoodie Alana throws it at the water before giving up and slumping down to sit on the dock. She kicks off her shoes and three pairs of socks as well and hopes she can dip her toes in the magic water without getting them bitten off. Elena joins her and they just sit like that for who knows how long just staring at Heaven, the afterlife, peace.
"What do you think it's like?" Alana doesn't answer. Doesn't want to think about it. Never has. The problem with never having a home is never expecting one. What does she know of peace, safety, harmony? Chaos is where she'd always lived. "I feel like it's like Christmas morning. No one's fully awake but there's this warmth of excitement no matter how cold it is outside. Everyone is safe and loved."
She's crying again before taking off the ring on her middle finger. It's almost like an engagement ring, just not one you'd expect from a girl so clearly upper class. Maybe not mansion rich but her family definitely owns multiple properties and businesses.
"This was my Mom's. The founders of my town are an annoyingly big deal. Lockwood, Forbes, Fell, Gilbert and Salvatore, the founding families have always been kind of up themselves. My Mom, well Grandma Gilbert thought she wasn't a good match and refused to give my Dad the family ring. So, trust fund frozen, drowning In med school bills my Dad buys her this and they get married anyway. Once it was done Grandma Gilbert handed the ring over to save face. Mom gave me this one on my sixteenth birthday." Damn that's good. Stupid Elena with her picture perfect family. Well, they were. Sorry Mr and Mrs Gilbert.
"I, I was left in a box in a hospital waiting room two weeks after I was born. St Grace children's hospital. A nurse said I needed a name Alana means precious and that was what everyone called me the first few days." She didn't even get a baby blanket. She'd spent so long on the move she'd learnt not to get attached to, well anything.
"I know I sound selfish. Asking you to suffer so I don't have to, but, I had everything and everyone I wanted for almost seventeen years. I get the feeling you didn't get much of anything." Damn her for being right. Damn Landon for asking for the one thing she's never had.
"Surely your friends and remaining family will notice if you're suddenly possessed by little Orphan Alli." Elena knows she's got her before she actually agrees and spends the next hour explaining the basics of her friends and family and promising to blame and mistakes on head trauma or the psychological type. She's actually kind of funny when she's not crying.
When Elena drops the ring in the small red satchel it takes barely thirty seconds for landons ferry to arrive.
"Hi! So we've come to a decision." Landon is annoyingly chipper.
"I want to see my parents." Elen says and Alana sits back down on the other side of the pier.
"You're sure? Both of you?" Alana doesn't wait for them to board the boat.
"See you on the other side." Alana Grace slips of the edge and into darkness. Elena Gilbert's heart restarts and she takes her first breath in three minutes before coughing out the water in her lungs. There's no one around but sirens can be heard in the distance.
Stefan Salvatore watches the girl that looks so much like Katherine look down at her hands, to her middle finger on her left hand. He see's the faintest outline of a ring tan. She rubs it like she's nervous and then feints. The police and ambulance are on their way, he can go now. He will go now. Soon