I'm still for a minute, just letting myself drift in the chill, inky liquid.
If I pretend, it almost feels like being in my mother's womb.
Here, I can tell myself that I don't have to do anything.
Here, I can tell myself that nothing else exists.
(Here, I can tell myself that maybe I just died back then, with my parents.)
It's a lie, but almost a comforting one.
I don't want what waits above, outside, in the real world.
But, like so much else in recent days, weeks, months, I just don't feel like I have a choice.
So, as my lungs begin to burn, as my instincts start to force me to move, I kick out, kick upwards.
And I breach the surface.
I gasp and my eyelids fly open.
For a moment all I can see is light, blinding light, then my eyes adjust.
It's a metaphor for something, I'm sure, but I can't quite grasp the thought before it escapes.
The first thing I focus on is Damon's face, and I'm caught between relief and anger.
Relief - I'm alive (alive!), and so is he.
I haven't lost everyone, like I lost...
Anger - I'm angry at him, but I can't remember why.
And then it hits me. I didn't make it out alive, did I?
Not really.
Thanks to him.
And he's got the most *concerned* look on his face, it just sparks something inside of me.
I try to slap him, but my arms aren't cooperating, aren't doing anything except shaking, shaking...
I'm so weak, I can hardly move at all...
He says something, but I can't quite hear what he's saying, not over...
How do you feel?
That's what he was asking me.
How do I feel?
How do I feel!
If only I could say anything, if only I could *do* anything, but all I can do is mouth incoherently, listen, listening to the sound of drums.
The sound of my heartbeat.
I'm alive!
I'm still alive!
And suddenly I feel like I can do anything.
"I feel fine," I tell him.
"I feel fine," I tell the world.
And for a moment, just for a moment, it's true.
For a moment, I feel *glorious*.
And then it all comes crashing back.
Death.
More death.
So much death.
Why won't it end?
Why won't it ever end?
My eyes search out the other shadowed figures in the room.
Jeremy.
Alaric.
Even Katherine, clad in white, looking at me with uncharacteristically liquid eyes.
Her, at least, I can look at without hurting, without remembering...
But I can't do that, not for long.
It feels too much like giving up, giving in.
And I have to be strong.
I have to be strong for Jeremy, when I tell him...
But first I have to know.
First I really have to know.
Did it work?
Were the sacrifice, not worth it, never worth it, but at least not in vain?
"Klaus?" I ask the room.
"Dead," Damon says with no small degree of satisfaction. "As a doornail." He shrugs, and quirks a smile (and how can he smile? How after... After everything.) "I would have brought you his heart, but I crushed it underfoot. Just to make sure."
"Good," I whisper.
Good.
As I wade towards the shore, water dripping from my hair and body, I can see my clothes there on the riverbank, folded up neatly where I left them. I ignore them.
I won't be needing them, not yet.
Not until after...
Not yet.
Instead I turn my attention to a simple white shift and bite my lip.
I don't move towards it.
I *can't* move towards it, even though the cold night air is making me shiver ever harder.
"Don't worry," I hear a by now familiar voice whisper. "I'll be right here with you. All the way. No matter what."
It shouldn't help.
I hardly know her.
It does, anyway.
I feel like I've known her all my life.
I turn to look her at her, at my own familiar features arranged in an unfamiliar expression.
"Thank you," I tell her, and mean it.
She regards me with serious eyes. "You don't have to go through with this."
I swallow through a suddenly dry throat that almost mocks my damp and shivering exterior.
"I really do," I tell her, and finally manage to move towards my appointed robe.
White for innocence.
White for purity.
White for a sacrifice.
When Damon staggers a little, before trying to stand upright, a cocky smile on his face, as though he meant to do that, my heart lurches.
I'm still angry with him, volcanic anger deep beneath the surface that I'll never show, but I can't lose him. Can't lose anyone else.
"I'll be fine," he tells me, but I can see the lie in his eyes.
It's almost not a surprise when I see the werewolf bite, already sending its blistered tendrils through his flesh.
"Can't believe that I let him bite me," he whispers. "Sloppy. I'm getting sloppy in my old age."
When Stefan, freshly healed from the injury Klaus inflicted on him, staggers carrying Damon, though, it's so much worse.
His bewildered expression holds no deceit.
"What's wrong?" I ask him, plead with him.
He swallows, seems unable to speak for a moment. "I don't know," he finally manages. "All of a sudden... I just feel drained..." he says, slumping to the ground.
"Here," I tell him, baring my wrist. "Have some of my blood."
He hardly even protests before plunging his teeth in.
It's a bad sign, I can't help thinking, even as I grit my teeth against the pain, looking at anything else apart from his distorted features battened on to my arm.
Katherine is there, staring back at me with large, quiet eyes, still dressed in that white robe from earlier that's almost incongrously not like her.
"What have you done to them?" I demand accusingly. "Haven't you got what you wanted yet, Katherine?"
She smiles at me, sadly. "Not Katherine. Tatia."
Who?
I gasp as the sharp pain stops, looking down instinctively to see Stefan, with lips that are far too crimson, looking up at me.
"Who are you talking to?" he asks.
I look up, to point the other doppleganger, Tatia, out, but she's no longer there.
I flip my hair then look up after donning the shift to see Tatia looking at me with a bittersweet smile.
Despite my sublimated panic, despite everything, I can't help asking, "Are you alright?"
She starts as though she had been in a trance, then snorts softly. "No, not really. Too much like..." she shakes her head. "You?"
I mirror her snort, almost unconsciously. "No, not really," I say, but square myself anyway. "Not that it's going to change anything."
I take a breath, and go deeper into the forest.
Towards the glade.
Towards my fate.
Alaric and I have just about helped the brothers, my brothers, into the boarding house when my phone goes.
Hoping against hope that it's Bonnie phoning to tell me that she's already found a solution to the malady, I look down at the screen.
It's not.
It's Tyler, and with a dull sense of inevitability, I know what he's going to say, even before I pick up.
"It's Caroline," he almost yells, too fast and too loud, "She's collapsed, and she can't get up. I didn't bite her, I swear I didn't, but she's not responding, and neither Stefan nor Damon are..."
"Bring her to the boarding house," I say, cutting him off.
I don't know if it'll help, if we can pull another rabbit out of the hat, but, whatever happens, I want us to be together.
I'm not going to lose anyone else.
I can't lose anyone else.
But I'm not going to let anyone else go into that dark alone.
"Okay," he gabbles. "Okay. I'll be over as quickly as I can," he says, then rings off.
I slide the phone back into my pocket, and lean against the wall, just for a moment.
"The spell binding them to life is unravelling," Katherine, no, Tatia says.
I flick my eyes open and she's standing there, dressed in a white robe.
"What do you mean?" I demand, plead.
There must be a way to save them.
"Klaus must have been the Original who created their line. With him dead, without him acting as a lynchpin, the spell maintaining their existence is failing."
"Elena," Alaric voice interjects. "Who are you talking to?"
I look at him in confusion, and then back to Tatia.
"You can't see her?"
"Who?" he asks.
"I'm dead," Tatia says with a twitch of her lips that almost looks wry. Almost. "Just a ghost of my former self."
"She says that she's a ghost," I tell Alaric, then look back towards Tatia. "How come I can see you?"
"You were touched by death recently. And the dopplegangers and I have always been tightly connected. Like pearls on a string."
"You said the spell is failing. Is there anything we can do?"
Please.
She hesitates for a second, then answers. "I know a way to give them a little more time. But we need a witch. And it's dangerous."
Now it's my turn to hesitate. I've already asked so much of Bonnie.
But I have to know.
"What is it?"
"I was the original lynchpin, binding all of the Originals to undeath. And though I may be dead, the next pearl on the string can substitute for a while. Especially as she's already entangled in the spell herself."
It takes me a moment to follow her logic. "Katherine," I whisper, my stomach twisting, thinking what she'll likely do with that kind of power.
But it'll be worth it, if I can save Damon and Stefan and Caroline.
And she might be grateful to just be alive.
Maybe.
"It will only last one month," Tatia cautions. "And there are risks for the witch."
"Tell me everything. I'll take it to Bonnie, and see what she says."
But I already know what I hope she'll say.
A month more is a month to find another solution.
And somehow, impossibly, I can now talk to Tatia, someone who was present at the original casting of the spell.
That's got to be enough to give us a more permanent solution.
Hasn't it?
The forest is so dark beneath the eaves that, if it weren't for being able to follow Tatia's cool presence, I would have become lost a dozen times over.
(Though a small, cowardly, part of me would almost prefer that, still.)
(If I tried my best, and still failed, then it wouldn't be my fault.)
(That I'm still alive, even when everyone else dies around me.)
(Because I don't want to die.)
(I really don't want to die.)
(And I hate that I'm still so weak.)
(So very weak.)
But then we're there, at the clearing, which, like me, is washed clean and draped in white from the bright moon above.
The centre (the place of sacrifice) is empty, for the moment, but I can see shadowy figures around the periphery.
And, with effort, I can even begin to identify them.
Alaric, standing alone.
Caroline, dark circles around her eyes, supported, not by Matt or Tyler, but by her mother.
Stefan.
And my mind refuses to think of the person who isn't here, who can't be here.
Bonnie's voice rises to a fever pitch, reciting the words Tatia taught me, as Katherine, barely able to lift herself from the floor by this point, laps halfheartedly at the bowl of blood I contributed.
The candles in the room flare, then cut out, leaving us all in darkness.
Silence.
"Did it work?" I ask, tentatively.
Please, someone answer.
Please.
Someone flips the lightswitch and for a moment I can't see anything before the room resolves from a pattern of blurs and shadows.
Katherine is standing by the light switch, obviously looking much better.
Bonnie is lying crumpled on the floor.
I'm by her side instantly, reaching for her.
She's got to be alright.
She's got to be.
Tatia said there would be a risk for the witch, but not this.
Please, not this.
She groans as I touch her, and I almost laugh with relief.
"Can't I just have five more minutes?" she asks, with a tired smile. I can't help giggling, because she's looking up at me through her hair, in exactly the same way she used to do.
Back when we used to have sleepovers, and it was almost time for school.
Back in a more innocent age, before death haunted our every move.
My laughter dies abruptly, and the smile beneath her hair fades as well.
"How are you feeling?" I ask her gently.
"Even more tired than when Caroline went really nuts with the cheerleading exercises," she says, but this time the callback does nothing more than remind us what we've both lost. "Nothing that a good night's sleep won't cure," she adds.
But looking at fatigue on her face, the lines that already seem to have been carved, I wonder.
And hope I'm wrong.
"Elena," Stefan's voice comes from the doorway.
"It worked," I say, jumping up and running over to hug him.
He catches me, holding me a little way away as he looks somberly at me. "It didn't cure everyone."
Damon is raving by the time that we reach him, the bite's infection having spread with unnatural speed through his weakened system.
"Elena," he shouts, twisting, trying to clambeer out of bed. "Elena," he whimpers, and the sheer pain in his voice makes my stomach clench with sympathy. "Where are you?"
"I'm here, Damon," I say, but he doesn't react.
"I'm here," I repeat, more loudly, to no avail.
"I'm here," I yell, tears running my face, but still he doesn't hear, and Stefan holds me, allowing me to bury my face in his shoulder. "I'm here," I say again, but this time quietly, hopelessly.
There's a gasp at the door, and I lift my face to see Katherine, one arm supporting Bonnie, the other hand raised to her face, eyes glinting.
"Elena," Damon calls again, and Katherine flinches visibly.
"Is there anything we can do?" I ask Bonnie.
She pauses for a moment, looking like she's trying to muster all her energy to search her mind, before shaking her head. "I don't know. I don't think so. I'm sorry," she adds after a further moment, just the effort of speaking clearly taxing her.
"Is there anything we can do," I demand of Tatia, who's in the corner, observing with large, dark eyes.
"Not that I know of," she says quietly. "Not now."
No.
No.
No more.
Please, no more.
We all stand there, just looking at him, for what seems like forever.
Watching him get weaker.
Watching him get worse.
Watching the sores spread slowly over his body.
Finally Katherine is the one to act, breaking the collective trance.
"Stefan," she says with unexpected softness. "Say your goodbyes."
I feel Stefan start next to me. "What? No. There's got to be something..."
"No. There isn't," she says, and this time there's bite in her voice, a suppressed frustration, anger, that I can almost feel.
Veins writhe in Stefan's face, and he hisses at her.
I place my hand on his chest. "No, Stefan," I say. "You can't. She's the only thing keeping you alive, and I... You can't."
I can feel him almost quivering beneath my hand, but then he subsides.
"Go," Katherine says, softly again, and this time he goes.
He sits by Damon's side, and starts speaking to him, softly, urgently, words that I could try to catch, but don't.
I look away, it suddenly seeming far too private, and catch Katherine's eyes as she does the same.
There's a shared moment, a shared *something*, and I reach out for her, instinctively trying to comfort another soul in pain.
She looks at my hand in blank shock for a moment, before accepting it just a little lack of grace.
"You love him too," I say, softly.
She laughs, short, hard. "I love everyone I've ever seduced. It's one of things I'm good at. But, yes, I love him too."
I look at her a little shocked. "Then how could you..." Leave them. Betray them. Hurt them.
"It hurts. It always hurts. But it turns out," she says, with a certain amount of black humour. "That with enough exposure, enough *need* that you can get used to anything. Can even learn to enjoy it, in a certain twisted way."
I hug the side of her that's not holding Bonnie impulsively, aching with the compounded, congealed pain that she must have felt to forge her so.
For a moment, it even lets me forget the duo on the bed.
She freezes again for a moment, before pushing me forcefully away.
"I don't want that," she hisses. "I don't want your *pity*," she says, going for, but not quite hitting, scorn.
I still want to hold her, still want to *help*, but I don't know how, and I don't want to strain the fragile alliance holding everyone in check.
She looks away, towards the bed, pointedly ignoring me, and I can't help following her gaze.
Stefan. Damon.
Oh.
My brothers.
My poor, doomed, brothers.
We stand there, watching Stefan pour out his heart, his regrets, his love for his brother, until finally no more words flow. He sits there, quiet, for a moment, before leaning over and gently kissing Damon on the forehead.
Then he stands up and walks towards the door, past Katherine and Bonnie. "I need to be alone for a moment. Call me... call me when it's time," he says as he heads through the doorway.
I almost go after him, but stop myself before I can.
He doesn't want me with him, not just at the moment.
Later.
I'll be there for him later.
"You next," Katherine says to me in an odd, almost strangled, tone of voice, still not looking towards me.
I approach the bed slowly, almost unwillingly.
Damon's struggles have almost ceased entirely, now more twitches than anything else.
The rash has spread up his neck, the open sores starting to encroach on his face. And on his chest, angry red tendrils have started wrapping themselves around his heart.
It's not going to be long now.
It can't be long now.
I stroke his head and it almost seems like he presses into my hand.
"I'm here," I tell him. "I'm here."
I try to tell him that I love him, but the words won't quite come. I don't. At least not in way that he'd want, and I can't quite bring myself to tell him that white lie, even now.
I finally settle for begging and pleading for him to get better, for 'I care for you' and 'I forgive you'.
I don't even know how much I've been crying until I happen to glance down and see a pool of material stained dark by dampness under my chin.
And finally all I have left is 'Rest easily,' and a kiss on the forehead that mimics Stefan's.
As I walk away, Katherine looks around almost angrily at the rest of the room. "Anyone else?" she drawls. When there is no response, she says, "Good," and, after clearing a chair of junk and putting Bonnie gently down, she approaches the bed herself.
She whispers to him, she talks to him, she almost chats with him, showing almost none of the emotion that Stefan and I displayed.
Almost.
And the gap not covered by that almost feels like a deeply running river that I'm not quite comfortable looking at. A river wearing away her facade, leaving her more raw and more exposed than I've ever seen her before.
Maybe it's the near death experience, the one that's still haunting us, paused, not stopped.
Maybe it's Tatia's unseen presence prickling at her senses combining with my own, reminding her of a time when she didn't have to be quite so hard.
Maybe it's just that Damon's existence, the fact that she could always have another try, meant more to her than she's willing to admit.
It doesn't matter.
In the end, all that's left is a girl talking to a man that she loves who is dying.
And when *she's* finished, the kiss she gives him, even on lips covered in sores, is anything but chaste.
Anything.
Damon mumbles something, and I don't need to hear him to know what he says.
All I need to see is the way Katherine freezes, the utter hurt that radiates off her body.
Elena.
He said Elena.
Oh, Katherine.
And then she stands, in such a relaxed posture that you'd swear that nothing, nothing at all, is wrong.
It's a lie, but one I have no intention of ever calling her on.
"Stefan," she calls. "It's time."
There's a bang of doors and he's there, a mixture of denial, pain and anger on his face.
The emotions war on his face for a moment as he looks upon his brother, seeing his condition, before resolving into acceptance.
"Fine," he says, taking a long, slow step towards the bed. "I'll do it."
"No," Katherine says casually, and plunges the stake she's been concealing into Damon's chest.
Damon gasps, his eyes opening again, just for a moment, and he actually rises a little way off the bed.
And then he relaxes, the last of the air leaving his lungs, black veins underscoring the sores, and it's over.
It's over.
He's gone.
Damon's gone.
Another person's left me.
And it hurts. It hurts so very much.
(And, buried deep, but not deep enough, I can feel some traitorous part of me *relax*.)
(Some part of me whispers that now he'll never hurt me or mine again.)
(Some part of me tells me that I'll never have to be afraid of him again.)
(And I hate that part of me so very, very much.)
Stefan snarls and leaps at Katherine, hands outstretched.
She easily catches him, pins him.
There's a moment when our gazes meet, when I see just how *much* she is hurting, and I understand.
She did this for Stefan, so he didn't have to kill his own brother.
She did this so it wouldn't haunt him, curdle him.
She did this so he could focus his pain on something external, have someone to blame for Damon's death.
And, in a way, she even did this a little bit, just a little bit, for me too.
All in her own, broken, way.
Some day, some day that is not today, I might even manage to be gratefsul to her.
And then the mask slides back into place, and she looks down at Stefan, a cruel smile in place. "Uh-uh, Stefan. You can't touch *these* goods. Bad boy," she says, throwing him across the room, before looking around at the rest of us. "Well, I can tell when I'm not wanted. But don't worry, I'll be sticking around town for a while. After all, we've got a cure to find," she says, and then she's gone.
I run over to cradle Stefan, to hold him, to remind us both that we still have *something*, we still have each other.
To let ourselves cry, and to mourn our lost Damon.
Stefan doesn't quite meet my eyes.
I've tried to be there for him since...
But he's been slowly pulling away, shutting down, holding everyone, me included, at arms length.
I try to be fair.
It's so much worse for him.
Maybe it's just a natural part of the healing process.
Maybe he needs some time to just be.
Maybe, in a bitterly ironic twist, he's doing to me what I did to Matt.
But, in a selfish way that I hate, but can't help, I'm hurting too. And I want to grieve with him.
And I worry that at least part of it is that he's still seeing Katherine holding the stake and seeing me as well.
And blaming us both.
(And the worst thing about that fear, the thing that stings the most, is that maybe he's right to.)
(There's the part of me, still, despite me trying to dissect it with all the power of my pain, that's viciously glad that Damon's dead and can never hurt me again.)
Still watching him, still hoping that he'll look my way, and we can at least start to bridge this gap before... before... I see him tense, and I don't have to have eyes that pierce the darkness to know who's arrived.
Katherine walks slowly out into the moonlight, letting the moon illuminate all the damage that has been done to her since last it was full.
She doesn't look so much aged as refined. Distilled down to her base elements with everything not absolutely essential boiled off. All hard lines with nothing to spare.
But she's not walking slowly because of that. She's walking slowly because she's supporting Bonnie, like she always seems to be doing these days, who *does* look aged. Her once black hair is now pure white, and her once clean skin now cracked and almost sallow.
Both of them bent, together, under the pressure of maintaing an entire line of vampires.
Oh, Bonnie.
If I'd known...
(Would you really have done anything different? part of me asks.)
I'd like to say yes, but...
Everyone is still alive.
And Bonnie insists, still, that it's been worth it.
That we've found a way.
That all I need to do is...
And she has already paid so much, *will* pay so much more if I don't step up and do my part.
There's a selfish part of me that just doesn't want to die.
But I've tried to make my peace with that.
And so Tatia and I step into the moonlight, side by side, to start the ritual to end all this.
Bonnie stares at the book as if just by willing it, she can change what it says.
She's looking awful.
A good night's sleep, several, even, didn't erase her exhaustion.
In some ways, it just made it worse.
The spell was leeching the life out of her, Tatia had said.
The effort of keeping Stefan and Caroline alive was killing her.
Both had begged her to stop, to just let them die.
She'd refused, saying that it wasn't over yet.
And Tatia had said that she couldn't cancel the spell anyway.
That the world didn't offer backsies.
Tatia had, at least, managed to locate some of the journals of the original witch, the one who had made the Originals.
Of course she had known where they were, she had said. She'd been her apprentice.
Of course she had known about the ritual, she had said.
She'd been its lynchpin.
She'd been its sacrifice.
But about how to maintain the line, how to fix the problem long term.
About how to save Bonnie...
She'd been remarkably tightlipped, just looking at me with large, dark eyes that said she knew more than she was saying.
I'm confident, on the other hand, that I can get answers out of Bonnie.
"Have you found something?" I ask.
She drags her eyes up to me almost unwillingly. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" I'm caught between hope and dread.
Hope because maybe my friends and loved ones can be saved after all.
Dread because of Bonnie's tone, and because nothing, nothing comes without a price, it seems.
Bonnie closes her eyes, propping her head up tiredly on the book. "I've only managed to find one ritual to create a lynchpin. I keep hoping that there's another, but..." She shrugs. "I haven't managed to find one yet. We've got a couple more weeks in any case. We need to do it under a full moon."
There's a lump in my throat. "What's the catch?"
She opening her eyes, staring at me steadily. "There's only one ritual to create a lynchpin."
Oh...
Oh.
It almost comes as a relief, after seeing everyone around me fade away.
"You mean, you need a sacrifice."
"A particular sacrifice," she confirms.
Oh.
I find my eyes filling with tears.
I shouldn't be crying.
I shouldn't be upset.
I don't have any right to be, not after everything else, everyone else who has been lost, and it isn't even as if it's a new idea I have to get used to, but..
"Okay," I manage to choke out. "Okay. I'll do it."
I don't have any right not to.
Tatia is suddenly *there* looking at me with concern in those eyes of her.
"Happy now?" I ask, snapping at her.
Bonnie starts to react, then realises that I'm not talking to her.
"I was hoping that there was a different way," Tatia says quietly, in a way that says she had a fairly good idea there hadn't been.
"Is that Tatia?" Bonnie says.
I blink tears out of my eyes, and nod.
"Good, because I think we'll need her too."
"I'll be there," Tatia says gravely. She pauses, hesitates, then finally says, "There might be a way out, though. If you can call it that. And it'd make the spell that much stronger."
Her tone doesn't leave me with much hope, but I ask anyway. "What is it?"
We meet in the middle of the glade.
Katherine carefully lays the big silver chalice she'd been holding, the one used to do the original ritual, still intact after all these years, down.
(Connections and symbolism can be powerful, Tatia had told me, as she led me to it, and we're going to need all the power we can get.)
"Ready," she asks me with a smirk, taunting me.
(Trying to distract me.)
(And the fact that I know that tells me we've been spending *entirely* too much time together.)
It works at best partially, but I nod anyway.
"Good," she says, and fishes out an iron dagger, fashioned in an antique way (The original has long since rusted away, Tatia had said, but this is close enough), and hands it to Bonnie, who takes it, glaring at Katherine all the while.
(Though with not nearly as much venom as she might have a few weeks ago.)
Katherine picks the chalice back up with one hand, and wraps the other arm back around Bonnie, supporting her, as the moon rises high above us, and Bonnie begins her chant.
The moonlight around us isn't so much dimmed as refined.
Everything that is not silver and magic disappears, anything that might allow me to see outside our circle.
The world is reduced to us four, and it vibrates to the words of Bonnie's chant.
And, all of a sudden, I'm not afraid.
For this one, shining moment, I know that what happens next, *whatever* happens next, is what is meant to happen.
And I can see that sense of calm reflected in the eyes of my dopplegangers, eyes that are bright in the moonlight, eyes that gleam like pearls.
Bonnie stands up straighter as the power of the ritual rises, stands back a little, leaving just the three of us in the circle.
We rehearsed this before, just last night, but actually taking part in the ritual is different, feels so different.
My movements feel guided, scripted, like even if I'd had no preparation at all, I'd still know what to do.
Katherine places the cup on the ground, I hold my wrist up, over it, and Bonnie slices the edge of the knife smoothly across it.
The cut burns like fire, freezes like ice, and the droplets of blood sparkle in the moonlight as they drickle into the chalice.
Bonnie's chant rises to a pitch, then stops, dead, and the power subsides, the feeling of peace shatters.
Bonnie sinks, almost drops, to the ground, and Katherine twitches towards her, but stops.
She can't leave the circle now.
None of us can.
Not until the ritual is over.
And there's still the highlight yet.
Suddenly afraid again, I look down into the depths of the chalice as though there's something in there that might bite me.
(In many ways, it would simplify things if we used a doppleganger as the new lynchpin of Klaus' line, Tatia had said. We're already attuned to the power. But there would still have to be a sacrifice.
There would still have to be a death.)
It's too late now for any regrets, any second thoughts.
I know what I have to do.
I pick up the chalice, put it to my lips.
And swallow.
Tatia smiles at me tearfully, and extends her hand.
I take it, and, for the first time, I can feel her touch.
Cool and silvery and just like moonlight.
I extend my hand to Katherine in turn, who takes, then stops, blinks, and focuses her eyes on Tatia for the first time.
"How nice to meet you, finally," she says.
Tatia offers her a slight smile. "I'd like to say the same, but, well..." she says, and shrugs.
(I've had to watch her for the last five hundred years, Tatia had said once, after having seen Bonnie helped back to her house by Katherine. And what you know about isn't even a *tenth* of what she's done.)
Katherine eyes her narrowly, but doesn't pursue it any further, just accepts her hand and completes the circle.
And Bonnie's voice starts up again.
And all we have is each other.
Power runs through us like a current, old power, new power, power that's been constrained, tamed, for centuries, slowly building.
And I begin to realise, just a little, quite what the original witch did.
This is the life force of all the victims any vampire has ever preyed upon.
This is the pool which they feed.
This is the pool upon which they draw.
And they have not even the faintest idea about how much is left.
And the dopplegangers were part of a greater spell, made into the lynchpin for this pool.
The lock, the key.
It's why we keep popping up.
The power wants to be free.
But all of this is a problem for another day because Bonnie's ritual is reaching its climax.
And there is a sharp pain in my back, as I'm impaled on a stake of white ash, mirroring Tatia's first death.
And there is a moment, a timeless moment, when we're all linked.
Tatia is the death.
Katherine is the lynchpin, the Original of the vampire line.
Bonnie is the pestle, combining our elements.
And I am the mortar, the crux, the vessel into which everything is poured and new things are forged.
I am everything.
And, in that very instant, high on the accumulated power, I can't help but give back.
I give Bonnie back her youth.
I give Katherine back her depleted reserves, more even, filling her with power so she's almost as strong as an Original herself.
And Tatia, Tatia I give the only gift I can.
It's up to her what she's does with it.
And then it ends.
The moment ends, and I am sinking down on legs that can no longer support me.
Everything is going dark, and I am dying.
And my last thought is, 'So this is death.'
I gasp and my eyelids fly open.
But this time, I can't hear my heart beating.