September 22, 2011
Amara stops and stares at the girls that share her face.
This, then, is what she had wrought? These two girls, so different and yet so alike, are her shadow selves. How strange. They could all have been sisters, in another life.
What of their souls? Hers is bound to Silas for all time. She's not certain how it happened. All she knows is that she is drawn to him as certainly as insects to honey. This time is strange; does anyone even understand that comparison here? Everything is rock and metal. There is almost nothing natural. Even the fire in the glass is controlled by the flick of a switch.
In all that time that had passed, Amara had observed the changing clothing of the souls that came to pass through her. How odd the world continued to be, to change and stay the same at once. How odd the three of them, to change and stay the same together through the centuries. These poor girls have been doomed to relive her mistakes. If she can help Elena, and be rid of her own cursed existence, she will do so.
Amara looks down at the strange book in front of her. It is very unlike the books of her own time. "What is that?"
"It's Bonnie's grimoire," Elena explains.
Grimoire. The word is very foreign. Amara had come to understand many languages through the centuries of supernatural creatures passing through, but the specifics escape her. "Grim...what?"
The one called Katherine glances over at her in obvious irritation. "It's a magic spell book."
Amara pretends not to notice when Katherine mutters idiot under her breath. Amara has suffered far too much in her far too-long life to particularly care about some petty insult. Still, it is disconcerting to be called stupid by one that essentially shares all her characteristics, presumably including intelligence.
When Qetsiyah cuts her hand it shocks her. She is not used to feeling her own pain.
The others banter back and forth when their turns come. Pain seems to be another inheritance among them. Her blood mixes with the blood of her other selves, writhing on the book. She watches as it forms a strange, seemingly ancient symbol.
Her eyes meet Katherine's, then Elena's. Amara avoids Qetsiyah's entirely as the woman chants. A breeze appears out of nowhere. This sort of magic makes her uncomfortable. Her own people had been witches as well, but none had been born for millennia before her own time as powerful as Silas and Qetsiyah.
Generally, when witches cast large spells, it means death, and therefore her own pain.
The young Bonnie appears next to Elena. Amara watches her; she is calm, collected.
Until no one is.
Windows begin to shatter; the strange fire in the glass above her sizzles out. Amara flinches, trying to fold in on herself, waiting for the pain.
"What's happening?" Elena demands.
"Silas is happening," Qetsiyah spits. It is the same tone she used to use when the fabric she wanted came from Egypt two weeks too late. "Show yourself, bastard!"
The lights go out entirely.
There is a sigh of exasperation somewhere in the dark. Her own voice calls out from across the room in irritation, "I can't see anything, can you?"
But Amara is not listening to her shadow self. Amara is being pulled from all directions and no direction. The wind is stronger now; she cannot tell if it is in her head or if it is pulling at everyone. Darkness stronger than the absence of light settles in around her. Memories fly through her head at random, places and people she will never see again because they existed two thousand years ago.
Amara hopes this is death. She closes her eyes.
Then she is gone.
Elena fights back the angry tears threatening to spill over. They had been so close to getting Bonnie back. Couldn't Silas have come ten minutes from now hell-bent on killing everyone?
Katherine is obviously frustrated with her own lack of nocturnal vision when she calls out, "I can't see anything, can you?"
"The electricity's out in the whole house", Damon announces as he enters. "What happened?"
Elena takes a deep breath. As long as Damon is here, she will be safe. "Silas is here."
She gives him a look, and in the span of a second they each say to the other doesn't that just figure?
"Well Silas owes me a new fuse box," Damon grumbles, but Elena sees the tension in his shoulders as he swivels the flashlight around.
Suddenly he stops. "Hang on," he says, making a point to shine the harsh light directly into Katherine's eyes, "I only see two doppelgangers. Where's Crazy Pants?"
Several possibilities flash through Elena's mind at once. What happens is not one of them.
Katherine gasps, clutching at her chest. Her hands move to her arms, her legs, and her hair. She cannot seem to speak; Elena watches as she seems to compress. Katherine fights it as hard as she can; she falls to the floor, fingernails scraping the wood.
"Is she finally stroking out?" Damon asks hopefully, but his eyes are disturbed.
Katherine gasps, and then disappears.
First Amara, then Katherine…
Elena rushes into Damon's arms.
"I'll take care of you," he swears. His arms are crushing her ribcage, holding her so tightly she barely notices when the strange pressure starts behind her eyes. There is something like wind, but her hair isn't lifting or flowing, so she knows it is only in her mind.
"Damon," she chokes.
She hopes her eyes convey what her voice cannot. She feels she is being pulled in all directions. What spell is this?
His blue eyes blaze, and as always she feels a chill of recognition in her very soul. "I'll find you," he promises.
Then she is gone.
Damon yells out in anger and terror the second she leaves his arms. One moment she is there; the next she doesn't seem to exist. He can't sense her anywhere in the house.
"Silas!" he screams.
There is manic laughter from all around him, laughter that sounds as though it belongs to his brother, but it does not.
Then there is something between a blast and a flash, and Damon is gone too.
October 31st, 1991
"You've missed a cycle before, dear. Even doctors get false positives sometimes. I sincerely doubt that-"
"You don't understand," Miranda cut her husband off. "Something is different. I can feel it."
They had been trying and failing to conceive for some time now. In desperation, Miranda and Grayson Gilbert had turned to in-vitro fertilization treatments. She had been implanted with five eggs only twelve days ago.
Hope swelled within her. She knew, somehow, that something big had happened. She had awoken in the middle of the night with the strangest awareness of her body, her surroundings, and somehow of time itself.
She knew her husband didn't want them getting their hopes up again only to be disappointed, but this was unlike anything she had felt before.
The jelly is cool when they place it on her stomach. Usually ultrasounds aren't done this early in the pregnancy, but in this case they need to see how many eggs are actually viable. Miranda begins to worry when the technician squints at the monitor, blinks, and squints again. A vague sort of fear settles inside her when the technician gets up, retrieves someone else, and sits back down.
The doctor looks from Miranda to Grayson, and slowly beings to grin. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert. At first we thought it was a fluke; this is extremely rare. You're going to be the proud parents of four identical babies."
Miranda closes her eyes against the happy tears and smiles as her husband falls to the floor in a dead faint.
May 23, 2009
Caroline blinks into the bright light. She's in her room, in her bed. The covers are soft and warm. When did she come back here? One moment, she was at the Boarding House, waiting on Bonnie to be revived by Qetsiyah, and now…
Had it worked? Had there been a magical backlash or something? This isn't the first time she's been knocked out unceremoniously only to wake up safe, courtesy of her friends.
"Honey?" The voice is her mom's tentative, soft whisper. It sounds like she's been crying. Oh, no. What had gone so horribly wrong?
Something is wrong with Caroline, too. It's taking too long for her eyes to adjust to the hall's light. "Mom?"
"Sweetheart, wake up. There's something you should know."
Caroline tries to sit up at vamp-speed; instead, the soft muscles in her stomach protest. Panic sizzles through her. Her heart beats faster. Blood rushes in her ears. She has a headache; it feels suspiciously like the early beginnings of a hangover, only vampires don't get those.
Liz sits on the edge of her daughter's bed.
It is then Caroline realizes that this bedspread is one she had over two years ago, back when she was still-
Human.
The word reverberates through her skull so loudly she almost doesn't catch what her mother is saying.
"Sweetie, there was an accident. Elena and her parents… well they skidded off the road. Off of Wickery Bridge. Elena will be fine, but her parents didn't make it, honey."
Caroline blinks in the still blinding light. Human. She is human, and her bedspread is old, and her mother is just now informing her of the deaths of Elena's parents.
"What?!"
"I know. I know, it's awful." Liz nods. Just as Caroline remembers from years ago, her mother bows her head and starts to sob.
Caroline numbly takes her mother in her arms.
After she leaves, Caroline wracks her mind. It no longer has the speed or recall it did when she was a vampire. Staring at her ceiling in the dark, Caroline tries desperately to remember. When she does, she picks up the cell phone she had more than two years ago and dials a number she had nearly forgotten.
The phone rings three times.
The line connects, but no one says anything.
Finally, Caroline whispers, "Stefan? It's me, Caroline. What the hell is going on?!"
Stefan sounds tired but strangely relieved on the other end. "Caroline. Thank God, you remember. Bonnie doesn't yet, and I haven't been able to get a hold of Damon-"
"Stefan, my mom just told me that Elena's parents died. Like, tonight."
Stephen pauses. "Yeah. About that. Welcome back to 2009, Caroline."
The line goes dead.
The next day, with her mother tending to the "distraught Gilbert children", Caroline drives to the Boarding House. She does not look in any mirror. She puts on her most nondescript clothing; had everything of hers always been so bright and flashy?
Stefan swings open the door. He's in a white t-shirt she doesn't remember, jeans, socks. He looks perfectly normal, just like himself. She throws herself into his arms.
She feels him sigh into her hair.
"Did you text Bonnie?" he asks.
She nods. "Yes. She said she'd be here. I'm assuming that means she remembers as well. God, Stephen, just yesterday she was dead and now-"
"I know. We'll figure this out, Care."
She enters the Boarding House. Rugs that had been ruined lie on the floor. Vases and glasses that had been shattered are in place. She feels as though she's about to be sick. Damon comes down the stairs. He's wearing the sort of clothes he did when she met him, all leather and V-cut and clinging and old haircut. She stares.
He stops on the landing, looking back at her. Her human body betrays her fear; last time she had been human, he had taken advantage of her, abused her, and fed on her.
She knows as he looks at her he can see her thoughts in her eyes.
He shakes his head, eyes pained.
She nods.
It is over. As a matter of fact, it will never happen.
She breathes a sigh of relief years in the making.
"There's Baby Brother, there's Blondie… Where's Teen Witch?"
The front door blasts open, so hard the hinges squeak. Bonnie strolls in, power emanating off of her. In their original timeline, she had been a fledgling witch at this point, barely believing in her own powers. Now she has knowledge and practice under her belt.
"What the ever living hell is going on? I woke up this morning as a living sixteen year old. My Grams cooked me breakfast and sent me on my merry way." Bonnie's eyes shine with rage and grief.
"Right on time," Damon mutters.
Caroline's phone starts to ring before she can rejoice in her best friend being alive. She stares down at it. There, clearly labeled and shining, reads the name Amara.
Her eyes widen. She shows the phone to the others. They shrug.
"Hello?" she asks into the speaker.
"Caroline? Hey, it's me." A voice that sounds like Elena's but is not Elena's filters in. The tiny speaker is deafening in the silent room.
"Hey. Um-" Caroline starts, unsure what to say.
"Listen, your mom told me to call you. She offered to let all of us stay for a little while until Aunt Jenna gets here, but we wanted to make sure it was alright with you."
Aunt Jenna? Damon mouths.
"Who is all of us?" Caroline asks, damning her strangled voice.
Amara hesitates. "Just, you know, all of us. Me, Tatia, Katerina, Elena, and Jer. But if you'd rather us not, I completely-"
Caroline's hyperactive brain overrides her spinning mind. The words are out before she can stop them, almost as though fate makes her say them. "No, of course I don't mind! I just wasn't sure if Jeremy wanted to stay with one of his friends instead or something. Of course. Whatever you guys need."
With a start, she realizes she said the same thing to Elena when this originally happened, and she had called from the hospital asking if she and Jeremy could stay with her and her mom.
"Thank you, Caroline. Seriously. Elena's not even out of the hospital yet, so-"
"Yeah, no. Just call me if you need anything."
There's a click, and then silence from the other end.
"Amara?" Bonnie demands.
"Tatia?" Stefan questions.
"Katerina?!"" Damon growls.
"Elena." Caroline breathes.
After several hours of witchy meditation, many nosebleeds, more hours of research in at least four different Grimoires, and one pizza break, Bonnie sighs wearily.
"Well," she says, "I know a couple of things for certain."
"Enlighten us," Damon shrugs, sounding as tired as Bonnie looks.
"Silas didn't cast this spell using his own power. Silas's power is mostly mind-focused. When I first woke up, I thought it was another of his stupid hallucinations, but it wasn't. It's all real. We really are in 2009; it's just that Silas didn't use his own power to take us here. He channeled someone else. Or maybe multiple someone's, because this type of power… it's on a cosmic level."
"Great," Damon snorts, "So now there's maybe multiple someones, more powerful than him, that can alter all of time, space, and reality. Just great."
"Is there a way to fix this?" Stephen demands.
Bonnie hesitates. "Look, this is going to sound crazy, but… I think this is the fix. Like, to an ancient problem that we were barely aware of. It's sort of like someone wrote a really long story, hated the ending, erased three quarters of it, saved the erasure, and then went back and started from that point again."
"What about the Fantastic Four?" Caroline asks. She had to admit, sometimes Damon's nicknames are catchy.
"Ah yes, the brand new and improved Gilbert quadruplets; Amara, Tatia, Katerina, and Elena." Bonnie nods. "They're entirely legit, I think. Instead of bringing me back, when they mixed their blood, they called Tatia forth. Then, when we all got time-warped, they got warped even further back- all the way to the womb. They're actually sisters, as far as spellwork goes. They were all born together. And Stefan confirmed, the hospital records check out. There are even newspaper records from local publications about the four of them being born."
"But as far as we can tell, everything up until their birth happened exactly the way it did the first time. I still remember Katherine, not Katerina, the smiting bitch that tricked me into thinking she was locked in a tomb for a century and a half," Damon whines.
Bonnie nods. "Yes, that was her. Everything up until their new birth stayed exactly the same."
Suddenly there is a thick tension in the air. Caroline's migraine starts to dissipate in the face of adrenaline.
Stefan and Damon's eyes have met over the coffee table. Bonnie is glancing between everyone equally, obviously suddenly nervous. Damon's eyes are alight. Caroline remembers what this means; her heart beats faster.
Stupid human habits.
"This means we can change… everything," he gasps.
Everyone can see it; Damon sees a chance to be with Elena from the beginning, to avoid all the pain and strife. Caroline glances at Stefan and is entirely shocked to see he's not completely opposed.
At least not at first glance. There is pain in his eyes, to be sure, but resignation in his shoulders. They all know that he is not the one she chooses, in the end.
Bonnie butts in hesitantly. "I'm sorry, Damon, but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate."
Damon doesn't take his eyes from his brother's when he grits out, "Elaborate, Sabrina."
"This was a spell affecting not only the present, but destiny. All of this is meant to play out to its natural conclusion; that is, back to our original time. So until we reach September 22, 2011, certain things are probably bound to happen; think of them as catalysts."
"But..?" Damon prompts, sensing its existence.
Bonnie sighs. "But, there is also probably a wide margin of discretion."
Damon's eyes alight in victory.
"Do not hurt her, brother," Stefan warns seriously.
"Never again," Damon vows.
Caroline sits, and Caroline wonders, and she tries very hard not to despair at the thought that she may never be turned again.
"Could you two be any more like Edward Cullen?" Caroline snaps.
From the trees across from her home, she hears a ghostly chuckle.
Honestly; Salvatores.
Her mother had called her and told her to prepare the guest room. The girls would be staying in it while Jeremy takes the couch. Caroline's old obsessive human brain had kicked in, and she'd made welcome bags for all of the girls, complete with their names written on fancy little tags.
She watches as the girls file out of the police-issued SUV.
First comes Amara; her wavy hair falls down her back, clipped back to keep it out of her eyes. She doesn't seem nearly as crazy in this life; in fact she seems to cling to control. It's in the way she moves, first out of the vehicle, eyes scanning the driveway and the house. She offers Caroline a small wave. Then she turns to help her sisters out.
Katherine – no, Katerina- comes next. Caroline would recognize those curls anywhere. But instead of the wicked smile and the heels she had been expecting, Caroline sees only a tearstained face, a wrinkled sundress. It is so disconcerting that Caroline almost misses the next sister; Tatia steps out in yoga pants, wild hair of frizzy, crinkled curls piled on top of her head in a mess of braids and bun. She turns with Amara to help out Elena.
Elena's hair is pin-straight, as Caroline knew it would be. Her eyes are dead and her shoulders droop. She's still wearing a hospital bracelet.
Jeremy has long since jumped out of the passenger seat, brushing past Caroline into the cool confines of her house. Already, he smells strongly of pot. No one comments.
"Hey… everybody," Caroline greets weakly.
She observes the varying responses carefully; Amara smiles thinly at her. Tatia nods. Katerina-not-Katherine, surprisingly, steps into Caroline's space and then into her arms. Her head rests against Caroline's shoulder for a moment. She is so surprised she almost misses the hug entirely.
The three step past her, leaving Elena to be guided by Caroline's mother.
Originally, Elena had clung to her, sobbing all the while. This Elena does not; instead, she lifts her head, tears falling silently, and disappears after her sisters.
Caroline lets out a shaky breath, mustering a confident smile for her mother. She glances once at the brothers hidden across the street, no doubt in shock from seeing all the doppelgangers together at once.
Then she closes the door and starts reliving.