Hey, I'm back on for the first time in a while with the revamped version of my previous story "The Alternate Destiny I was Given"! Yeah, it's definitely been too long.

If this is your first time reading this series, the long story short version is that it's an AU where Amara survives the events of "Death and the Maiden" and hangs out with the MF gang. Literally no other explanation other than I loved her character and potential and I thought the show wasted a good opportunity with her. Especially in the scenes they gave her with Damon only for them to go nowhere whatsoever.

However, if you've read TADIWG, the last two author's notes (ch. 11-12) explain my reasons for delaying this story for as long as I did and where I plan to go with this. :)

Anyway, onto the story~!

The ones that carefully placed that nimble, small framed body in that crate, and left her as storage thought she was just a statue. A graven image as meaningless as the frivolous affair of relocating it.

A slab of stone, perfectly molded into a beautiful girl…one could swear it could just open its eyes and walk around. But still, they brushed it off - brushed her off - as an insignificant piece of artwork. To be placed in a New Jersey private storage, untouched and forgotten. After all, it was just a job. A mere insignificant task, blind eyes turned, no questions asked.

But did they never truly wondered about the girl trapped in the stone, did they? The girl that loved, and was tormented in the name of that love? The girl fallen prey to desire? The poor naïve young maiden that was tempted by cruel passion?

No, of course they didn't. They wouldn't. The sorceress she once called her friend had ensured that.

And so she suffered.

Suffered immobile for two thousand years, aware of every millisecond of pure agony that had passed her by, not even sparing so much as a pitiful glance.

Not even the endless souls that pass through her knew of her pain. The girl that was left eternally blind, eternally mute.

The girl that could not weep, cry, nor scream.

This was truly a version of hell worthy of being called such.

Even Death itself had ignored her desperation, even as she tried welcoming it with open arms. The forbidden fruit it could touch not, Death made no attempts on her life. It had left her to the mercies of her suffering, the only being not allowed to touch her.

This was Quetsiyah's eternal satisfaction. Everlasting vengeance at her own expense. Immortality was acquired, but she would suffer through every second. Forever. It hurts so much, it just hurts, oh god, oh god, ohgodohgodohgod….

She could no longer think for herself, at least not of anything except the pain. Not of Silas, not of Quetsiyah, nothing. No one.

And the two thousand years she has spent here? Insignificant. Nowhere remotely close to the endless pain filled sentence she still had to endure. Time has no meaning here, not one remotely significant meaning.

Something she and time had in common, she mused. They were both negligible. They were the dew that gathered on the grass without anyone knowing, without anyone caring. Because the inevitable truth was that no one gave a damn.

And she was completely and utterly alone.

Always alone. Always…always…

For two millenniums, she could feel everything she could not see. Her nerves were overactive by this point, preparing her body for the excruciating pain that mentally brought her to her knees. So she was well aware of what she would feel when a soul would pass through. Hell, she was her own eyewitness to it. There was absolutely no way of avoiding it.

There would always be the pain, and so the only way she could pass time is to count her own heartbeats between souls. Sometimes they came all at once, barely giving her racing heart a second to have a reprieve. Sometimes it took several hundred heartbeats before she even felt the impression of a hand of the soul she could get a glimpse of in her mind's eye before they passed over. She never forgot a face...and she happened remember all the dead ones, these days.

And so the pattern went on. The pounding in her chest was the only proof she still lived, and the pain she could still contemplate was the only thing she could feel. That was the only system she had. The only thing she had left in this cruel, merciless world.

"Think about it, Damon," Tessa spoke in a reprimanding monotone, like she was unimpressed that he hadn't already figured it out, "The Travelers aren't fans of immortality. I had to bind the Other Side to something that would last forever, something Silas couldn't destroy." She sounded almost amused with the concept, he could swear she was probably rubbing her hands together deviously.

"What, his favorite childhood sled?" Damon asked meaning to be joking, although at this point, he was just too tired and frustrated to put any more effort into looking for that all powerful anchor.

If only she would actually give him the answer instead of playing the pronoun game him.

"Something a little closer to his heart," He wasn't mistaken, that was definitely amusement now. "Two thousand years old, immortal, indestructible. You're a quick boy, Damon. Figure it out." She hung up on him, leaving him to stew with that little significant cliffhanger she had presented to him.

Silas pulled and tore at the hinges of a tall, and otherwise untouched crate. He didn't know why, but this crate in particular gave out a sort of air of importance. Perhaps the anchor?

"No way."

"What?" Jeremy asked, confused as to what left the vampire dumbfounded.

"Not possible," a stunned Damon spoke in grim realization, "Tessa may be insane, but she's a bona fide genius." His blue eyes were widened in astonishment, his brows furrowed. It was all coming together, the pieces fit too perfectly to neglect this. He spoke again, still not looking at Jeremy. "Two thousand years old. Immortal. Indestructible..."

"The anchor isn't a thing. It's a person."

Silas had succeeded in unhinging the front of the crate. He tossed the wooden frame aside as he gave the crate a questionable glance. There was quite a bit of straw in there, he reached his hand in. He grabbed handfuls of it and discarded it onto the floor.

His fingers came into contact with stone as he continued removing the excess straw. Who on earth would go through this trouble to hide a statue?

It seems we finally have a winner, Silas thought, as he dislodged the straw from the anchor. This was it, after all these years, he would finally get the chance to reunite with the only person he ever truly cared about. The only thing that seperated him from her was this-

He stopped in his tracks.

Now that he had a better look at the statuesque anchor, the felt like he was just...

He couldn't believe his eyes, there was no way...his eyes had to be deceiving him...! That had to be the explanation for this. But still, the resemblance was way too close for him to disregard. He couldn't ignore the face of his only love resting within the box he tore apart...

"Amara..."

For two millenniums, she could feel everything she could not see. Her nerves were overactive by this point...

"She never killed Amara." Damon turned to glance at Jeremy, and gave him a smirk that mirrored the grim look in his eyes.

Countless times she felt her heartbeat through her fingertips, her neck, and her ears. Countless times until she felt something other than her own blood at her lips. Something other than her own blood pulsing through her body. It's a trick, a jest of liars, all the liars, don't believe them.

But her lips that were sealed together by stone were…softening against this unknown substance until she could actually…open her lips for the first time. For the first time in what felt like forever, she could feel her lips open. She could feel this warm liquid fall into her mouth, and so she swallowed in large gulps. Oh, it feels good, it feels so good…Oh, sweet ecstasy….

And it wasn't just her lips that were reviving. Slowly, she could feel her fingers receiving some mobility after being sealed against her chest for so long. Within seconds, she felt the stone release its tight grasp against her arms until she had complete control of her left arm and could cradle the source of melodious moisture closer to her lips.

She could feel the last bits of stone tearing itself off of her back, so she could arch her neck downward towards the source. She felt her hair fall softly against her back, and even her dress was no longer strangling her body with stone. The last bits were disappearing from her face…

"…mara….it's me…"

This sound was so faint in her ears, she almost didn't hear it. She almost didn't let herself believe it, two thousand years and her mind was still playing tricks on her. The mind is the cruelest enemy, it quickly became mine. She nearly let herself believe that it vaguely sounded like…a voice…?

Impossible…So many voices now, and some sound more alike than others…

The hardened clay around her eyes quickly lessened until it finally perished out through her eyelashes.

For the first time in two millenniums her doe brown eyes opened to the new world she didn't recognize in the slightest…

The stone that covered her from head to toe was gone, her body suddenly felt oddly indecent, almost naked without it. Amara couldn't even keep her eyes open for longer than a few seconds. The light she had spent her life hiding from was blinding to her eyes, no matter how dim it may be. Like a warrior's sword sheathed for far too long, its wielder knows not what is to be done with the tool, rendering it a hopeless endeavor…

Her entire body was sore, and she was breathing in large gasps of air as if she would never breathe again. She felt like every step she took was like she was a newly born lamb taking its first small hoof steps towards either the loving side of the mother, or the butcher. Likely the latter.

She was forced from the shadows into light, and the effects were overwhelming her. Everything hurts, It's hurting me, where have I gone? Being woken up from a life of painful lucid dreaming was one thing, but now her body was still too heavy. She should have dropped to the ground but somehow she was…floating. Or rather, some external force was lifting her up as if by a divine entity that was taking her somewhere safer. Where she would never be embraced by the vile fingers of pain, emotionally or physically.

"You're okay," There was that voice again, she thought.

It was surely a comforting figure, that the person cradling her frame wasn't trying to cause her pain, but she thought better of it. She had stood upon and lost hope in rescue a long time ago. She would be constrained to abide by her naivety until the end of time. Time as neglected as I am, and yet still remains constant to turn a blind eye.

"Go away," Amara barely got out a whisper, in fear of and in too much agony to acknowledge the person breathing against her ear any further. "Go away, leave me alone…" She attempted to push the vocal force away from her.

"No, no, no. It's okay…" The voice spoke in a sort of compassion, patience such as a father would use to frighten away their child's nightmares, no matter how frustrating the child. "Who are you talking to, huh? It's me…it's me…."

So many voices, so many voices, and yet the lone one hither speaks as… "S-Silas…?"

"It's me…" His voice was clearer to her now as he repeated his comforting words. Is he…?

"How is this possible…?" Amara inquired, whispering. Her head leaned on his supporting shoulder, and she spoke softly in a more controlled voice. "How are you here? After all this time…" He stopped in place as he tried to get her on her feet next to what she assumed to be a metallic crate, and she leaned her left arm against it. She tried to calm her breathing.

"I thought you were dead," Silas informed her behind her head, trying to cover up the hint of regret she heard in his tone. "Tessa said she killed you." Tessa? "She held your heart in her hands…" Does he mean Qetsiyah?

"She lied," Amara explained as calmly as she could as she turned to face him, "She couldn't kill me, there was only one cure…" Her voice grew weaker with the grief, "She wanted it for you…" Her eyes turned away from his, and trailed down his body, still debating whether this was a dream, or if anything else was even a reality.

"I took it…" Her eyes came to meet his slowly this time, his eyebrows furrowed in shame and dark green eyes filled with so much pain.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I wanted to be with you, I wanted to be at peace with you."

"The cure runs through your veins," She deduced in a whisper, searching his face, that shame filled expression she wished she could erase from his visage.

"I was ready to die for you."

Amara sighed, closing her eyes in understanding and put her arms around him trying to comfort him as much as she could as he did the same. She opened her eyes over his shoulder and noticed some broken glass scattered on the flattened cardboard on the dumpster. She released one of her arms from Silas' back and reached for one of the larger shards.

"I love you, Silas," She told him as her hand clenched the shard and brought it closer to his back. She grabbed it with her other hand as her left curved around Silas' neck. He still embraced her lovingly.

"I'm so sorry," She whispered in his ear and before she could even stop to see him react, she thrust the glass in the side of his neck in one swift motion. She heard him gasp.

"I have to be cured…" She grasped his hair tightly and brought her mouth to the wound, rubbing her teeth against it so she could receive as much of the cure from his blood as possible. He gasped further in pain as she drank. She swallowed in large gulps until she felt like she had enough to give her a human lifespan.

Amara released her lips from his neck, and Silas groaned painfully. She stepped back, taking his face into hers. His eyes were closed, and his head swayed a bit. He opened his eyes, but they involuntarily wouldn't meet her face.

"I can't live…another day…" Her bloodstained lips spoke and her eyes looked at him nervously as her breathing quickened.

Silas released his hold on her, falling to the blood loss and that was when she ran. Granted, she was nowhere close to the right state of mind to plan her escape. There were so many wooden crates around her and they confused her plans of searching for escape routes. Where do I go, where are the doors…? My head hurts so much…

Her body wasn't faring well either, she kept stumbling with no sense of direction, and her back gave up on standing her completely straight up. Her knees were begging to give out beneath her, but she would still proceed.

And then she heard things again. The voices of the dead and damned, and they reprimanded her for infinite amount of things, it seemed. They questioned her love for the man she stabbed in the neck, and they scolded her for wanting to embrace death when she still held the Other Side in her hands.

"Stop talking…" She tried to silence the head- splitting voices. She rested her back against a crate for a few seconds, breathing heavily, and closing her eyes until she willed herself to go on. "It's not up to you…!" She tripped over her own feet. "Leave me alone-!" She shouted, but her voice dwindled down to a whisper again,. "Leave me alone, leave me alone," she repeated over and over, aloud and internally, frightened of the noise, scared of her surroundings, and terrified she would faint now. "Leave me alone! I said- leave me alone…"

She placed her hands against her head, and she tried to keep herself standing with every bump against her back and contact she made with her fingers. If only everything would just stop spinning…God, go away…!

Her eyes kept searching around the unfamiliar place, across the wooden crates and boxes for any exit whatsoever. Her eyes kept roaming, roaming, until they swiftly made contact with something, at someone in front of her, and the voices finally stopped.

She stopped and stood in place so that she could see more clearly.

It was a man in front of her. He had short black hair that fell against alabaster skin. His face looked like what a sculptor could only dream to even come close to creating. His widened eyes were a light color, although she couldn't tell in the dim lighting exactly what color. He was wearing some kind of outfit that was unrecognizable, but he had a strong build, she thought.

He didn't look like anyone she recognized from the Other Side. He didn't look like everyone else.

Amara's eyes gave him a glance upward and downward. "Are you real?" she asked him in a somewhat stronger voice than when she was with Silas, but soft enough so she didn't feel like she would offend him. She took a step closer to look at him closely.

His eyes still stared at her in confusion, and he spoke in a voice that was somewhat more calming in her ears. "Are you?"

She inhaled and exhaled carefully.

He thought he would be used to this by now.

In his entire existence, he had met that face twice on two entirely different women, centuries apart. And he had kept his composure even when he came to this realization three years ago: that these two were not the same person.

However, this was not one of those times. Amara's presence shocked him in a way it hadn't with Elena before. But it didn't make sense to him. He had already been aware that the Petrova doppelgänger lineage were all tracked down to the very girl that stood before him. So he thought he had known what to expect when he had realized that she had been the anchor to the Other Side.

Except that he hadn't. Damon was stunned, to say the least. He wasn't sure if it was because he'd already seen this coming, and he was so sure that he knew what to expect... why did he feel this way?

Katherine had been the promise of adventure, of a world and life he couldn't begin to imagine for his human self.

Elena had been the promise of interest, the hook that ultimately led him to have his way with Mystic Falls again. Which little did he know would eventually become the end to a century of hate and boredom, the beginning of redemption.

Amara on the other hand? He had no idea…

She had come stumbling about, bloodstained mouth mumbling mantras of "leave me alone" and "go away", and it looked like she was running away from something. His first guess was that Silas had been the perpetrator behind her fear, but no one seemed to be trailing behind her or chasing her down. She was frantically searching around until her eyes had fallen upon him and she stopped in her tracks, a few paces in front of him.

From the looks of it, his presence threw Amara for a loop as well. He watched as she studied him with seemingly innocent curiosity. She asked if he was real.

He replied, "Are you?"

She breathed carefully as she stared at him, either misunderstanding his question or not listening. Amara shook her head, and willed herself to look at his face.

"Wh-Who are you…?" She asked nervously, confusedly. She tried to step closer to Damon, but she tripped over on wobbly legs and fell on her knees. He stepped over and helped her to her feet, supporting her upper body with his left arm.

He quickly surveyed the area to be sure Silas wasn't within earshot. When he was positive that it was all clear, he advanced forward taking Amara to the car.

"Trust me, you'd be better off not knowing the answer to that," Damon responded to her earlier question. He wanted to be sure exactly what happened to her before he loaded her with unnecessary or overwhelming information. "You have to listen to me, okay? Stay with me, stay with me…" He shook her gently when she looked like she would pass out in his arms. "What's your name?" He already knew the answer to that, but he wanted to be sure she still did.

"A-Amara…" Good, he thought.

"That's good, that's good. Hey," He was halfway to the car now, "Hey, do you remember someone named Silas? Yeah?" She nodded her head, "Okay, do you know where he is right now?" From her blood stained lips, though, he probably had a good guess.

"I-I…I don't…" Amara shook her head, shutting her eyes tightly. Her legs were wobbling beside his, so he bent down and put his right arm behind her legs before scooping her up and carrying her rest of the way. He rested her head on his chest for more comfort.

"It's alright," He told her, "Can you tell me what happened to you?" He asked, even though he had a pretty good idea of what she would have gone through before Silas woke her up. At least based on the revelation from Tessa implied.

She's the anchor to the Other Side, he knew, And I doubt that she donated her body to the cause willingly. If she was in a New Jersey storage until now, Tessa would have had to…immobilize her somehow, so she wouldn't be dangling the whole supernatural deadman wonderland over her.

"Qetsiyah…" Amara spoke in hushed tone, "…turned to stone and she…Silas…?" Alright, so could pretty much consider his suspicions confirmed, but he still wondered…What did they do to you?

"He…I, we…? W-What are you…what are you talking about…?"

They had gotten to the van, and Damon pulled out the keys to open the trunk. Once the trunk door wavered open, he placed Amara in and sat her up as best he could.

"Hey, hey, look at me," He placed his hand against her face and willed her to look at him. He was trying to be considerate to her, and yet he couldn't even tell if he had done or was doing anything that upset her. He wasn't familiar with this at all, he wasn't used to being the supporting type. Where the hell is Stefan's hero hair when you need it?

Amara groggily turned her head to stare at him in what looked like some form of skepticism, which was perfectly understandable, he thought. Two thousand years has to put a damper on one's social skills, but I guess her worry isn't completely unwarranted given my track record.

"You're gonna be fine. We're gonna get you out of here."

"Stefan Salvatore sleeps in his own bed tonight. Does that mean he stopped hating us, or did the power of the doppelgänger universe push him in the car with you?"

Elena gave a glance to Damon and Jeremy, who obviously heard the questionably friendly sap between her and Stefan. Okay, she guessed she deserved that. She let Tessa reel her in with, in hindsight, a rather obvious ploy and from the way things turned out, nearly screwed up any chance of bringing Bonnie back.

I'll admit it, it was dumb to let her bait me like that. And as long as Stefan doesn't remember us, there's not much arguing and screaming is going to do to get him to trust us.

Internally shaking her head at herself, she adjusted her top and walked toward the couch where Damon was sitting.

But I wasn't wrong about her being a giant manipulative bitch. Definitely not.

"Well," Elena explained, sitting down next to Damon and crossing her legs, "He, uh, saved my life. So, I'll take that as not hate." She interlaced her fingers and dropped her hands between her legs.

"A victory in a day otherwise marred by failure," Damon sourly commented with a tilt of his bourbon toward Jeremy, who raised his own glass in response. Elena glanced at Jeremy for an explanation.

"We couldn't get Bonnie back," Jeremy bleakly acknowledged her, "I get a pass."

"Did I say anything?" She inquired, feigning offense.

For a few seconds, silence filled the foyer until Jeremy spoke again, suddenly.

"No," he muttered, annoyed, to no one in particular, "No, I won't because it's not."

"What?" Damon spoke up, and gave an interrogative look towards Jeremy while Elena had the same amount of confusion on her face.

Jeremy spread his arms in a conceding gesture and smiled sarcastically, "Bonnie's here." Elena's eyes searched the foyer as if she could find some hint of her friend's presence- Jeremy continued, "She wants us not to worry."

"Don't worry, Bonnie," Elena spoke aloud to the air, but she knew she would be heard, "Okay? It's not over." Her eyes wandered to Damon as she said, "We've dealt with much worse."

"Well," Damon spoke soberly, with a no-nonsense tone, "Silas is MIA and out and about, which is pretty bad." He pushed himself of the couch, "And Amara's been cured. Which is even worse, because that means she's easy to kill." His voice rose in a sense of disbelief, "So the fate of the Other Side, which Bonnie currently resides, rests on a living, breathing human that we need to protect."

Elena, who had been staring at the ground while Damon spoke, turned her face to look at him when something he said brought about some questions she should've asked earlier, about the living anchor. "We need to protect?"

Damon put the bottle down on the coffee table and motioned her to follow him. He pulled out his keys from his back pocket and headed toward the front door as Elena got up off the sofa after him. Once outside, Damon lifted up the trunk of a large black van that contained a young woman, tied up and gagged, struggling to get free. Her unbrushed, wild, straight dark hair flew about her, and her legs were tangled within her dark rose colored toga. When the trunk lifted up, her chestnut eyes flew to Elena and widened, horrified.

"Elena," Damon said, "Meet Crazy Pants. Crazy Pants, meet Elena."

Elena stared at Amara in a stunned expression with what felt like a sickeningly familiar sense of déjà vu washing over her. The memory of when she first met Katherine, the unsettling surprise she felt even as she calmly questioned her, flashed through her mind. The irony wasn't even remotely lost on her.

She just never thought she would end up on Katherine's side of that encounter.

The original doppelgänger's response upon meeting her was a petrified shriek through the cloth tied over her mouth.

This probably comes as no surprise, but I'm a total slut for comments. xD So please let me know what you think so far!