When Life Gives You Lemons
DG32173

Sarah: just a random idea I had. I hope everyone enjoys.

DISCLAIMER
I only own what I write. This is the only disclaimer for the whole story.

WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Rated M for my sanity, not that I have any. Elena's viewpoint.

SUMMARY
Life keeps giving Elena lemon after lemon and she is tired of making lemonade. First, her brother drinks Anna's blood and commits suicide, waking up a newborn vampire. Then her doppelganger ancestor comes to town with some unknown agenda and gets an invite into her home. She also realizes that Stefan has secretly kept up his diet of human blood. Top that off with finding out that the most ancient of all vampires, the Originals, will soon come to Mystic Falls, intent on using Elena in some form of sacrificial ritual. Can't a girl ever get a break? Damon/Elena

Chapter 1
Dammit, Jeremy!

I groan as I sit on Jeremy's bed, watching my brother. His pulse would tell you he's dead. But I knew from the instant I saw that vial with a few drops of blood left in it what is really happening: Jeremy's in transition. I had called both Salvatore brothers as soon as I found the vial, but neither answered, so I left a voicemail for each of them. Something along the lines of "Jeremy drank Anna's blood then killed himself! I need a vampire here now!"

I run my fingers through my brother's hair. The ambulance had left with John only ten minutes ago. It was only after they left that I discovered Jeremy's body. I pick up my cell phone and call Stefan again. It goes straight to voicemail. I hang up and call Damon. I listen to it ring once, twice. On the third ring, he picks up. "I knew you couldn't resist calling me after that kiss," he drawls smugly.

"What kiss?" I demand. "Never mind, I need you to get over here now. Jeremy's in transition."

"WHAT?" he demands. "How the hell did that happen? I was just there not even half an hour ago!"

"You were?" I ask, surprised.

"You were there," he says slowly. "On your front porch? I helped you with your things? We kissed?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I only got home barely twenty minutes ago. Someone stole my things. When I got in, John was on the kitchen floor with his fingers cut off, including the one that has his eternity ring. He tried to tell me something and was pointing behind me, but I didn't see anyone when I turned," I tell him

He is silent for all of three seconds before letting out a blue streak that has me gaping in awe. "You said you're with Jeremy and he's in transition?" he demands.

"Yes, and I need you or Stefan to get here before he wakes up. He drank Anna's blood from a vial and then downed half a bottle of painkillers to commit suicide," I tell him. "Stefan's phone keeps going straight to voicemail."

"I'll be there soon. Open the kid's window for me."

With that, he hangs up. I quickly get up and open Jeremy's window. Within seconds of opening the window, Damon is in the room. He immediately goes to kneel at Jeremy's side. "You said there was a vial of blood?" he asks without glancing at me. I pull the vial from my pocket and press it into Damon's outstretched hand. He raises it to his nose to get the scent before sighing. "Definitely Anna's blood," he agrees. "We have to get the kid out of here, now. There's no telling when Jenna will be back. I'm going to make sure he stays at the boarding house until we can get him under control of the Craving." He stands up and scoops Jeremy up in his arms.

"I called her and told her about John," I inform him, following him downstairs. "She plans on heading straight for the hospital as soon as she gets done at the fire department."

He glances towards the taped off kitchen, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "You should stay at the boarding house, too," he says, continuing outside and down the porch steps. He heads straight for my car.

I nod, digging my keys out of my purse and unlocking the car. "The police asked me to stay elsewhere and have Jenna and Jer stay somewhere else as well while they investigate what happened to John," I say softly as he gently sets Jeremy in the backseat. "I told them Jer and I would be staying with you and Stefan and that Jenna would likely sleep over at Rick's. I had gone upstairs to check on Jeremy and tell him that we would be spending a few days over at the boarding house and that's when I found him," I say, trying not to give in to my emotions. My voice only cracks just slightly at the very end. I decide that I'm proud of myself for that. I can have a complete breakdown later. As soon as Damon shuts the back door of my car, I press the keys into his hand. He gives me a surprised look. "Last time I was behind a wheel with my emotions jumbled the way they are now, you had to pull me from a wreck after saving me from a vampire that wanted to kill me because I look like Katherine," I say softly. He winces, though I'm not sure why. "I don't want to take that chance with Jer in the back, no matter that he's gonna pretty hard to kill in a crash after he completes transition. You're driving."

He nods and circles the front of the car in a flash while I climb in the passenger seat. As soon as I buckle up, I turn so I can watch Jer. Damon starts the car and pulls out of the driveway. "He's going to be okay, Elena," he says softly.

"I just wish I knew why he would do this!" I say, completely frustrated.

"He wanted to turn off the pain of losing Anna," Damon replies.

I turn a sharp look on him. "How do you know that?" I demand.

He winces again but answers. "As soon as what burns I had healed, I headed straight over to your place, to tell Jeremy what happened to Anna. I knew how he felt about her and I felt like I had to tell him myself what happened in that basement," he says softly. "He asked if vampires could just turn it off. I knew what he was talking about. I told him about the switch but warned him that it wasn't something he wanted to do. Apparently, he ignored the warning." He hesitates before plunging ahead. "When I came out, I saw who I thought was you coming up the front walk, your stuff in her hands." I see clearly the pain in his eyes and know exactly who he ran into. "I never thought she would come back into my life. That's why I didn't pay attention to the small telltales that practically screamed that she wasn't you. Jenna ended up inviting her in, thinking she was you. I didn't realize why I was so uneasy about walking off until you called about Jeremy and told me about your things being taken. That's when I realized she was back. That's when I realized Katherine had come back and was invited into your home!" he all but snarls at the end.

I see the fury in his eyes as I feel cold dread flood through me. I close my eyes with a soft groan. "What does she want?" I ask softly.

He sighs angrily. Despite his rage, his driving is as impeccable as always. "I honestly don't know," he admits, obviously frustrated with that fact. "I mistook her for you, and she played the role too damn well. I get the distinct feeling she's been in town for a while, watching us. Watching you. I should have been able to tell that she wasn't you. I should have known!"

That's when his words when he picked up the phone earlier come back to me. "You kissed her, thinking she was me," I realize, opening my eyes to stare at him in shock.

He scowls but admits the truth. "Yes," he whispers. I know that if he wasn't driving right now, he'd have buried his face in his hands at that admission. "She returned the kiss. That should have been the biggest sign of all that I had made a mistake. But I wasn't thinking straight at the time. Then Jenna opened the door on us. She looked ready to breathe fire at the scene. She told her to get in the house. An alarm went off in my head at that, which should have told me something was wrong. But I walked off, not willing to face Jenna after everything that has happened tonight. Now I wish I had paid more attention to that alarm."

Seeing the pain in his eyes, hearing the crack in his voice, I instinctively reach over with my left hand, pry his right one off the steering wheel, and lace our fingers together. I take a deep breath, steadying myself. "She came back for a reason," I remind him. "If we can figure out what that reason is, we can get her to leave again." I pause at that, examining his face intently.

He glances over at me and squeezes my hand gently. "If nothing else, we have to find a way to rescind her invitation into your home," he says. "You, Jeremy, and Jenna are not safe there while she can come and go as she pleases." He seems to sense my surprise at his inclusion of Jeremy on that list. "The kid is just a newborn, Elena. He's not up to facing off with a vampire as old and crafty as Katherine. If she wanted to, she could easily rip him apart without batting an eye."

I frown at that, realizing something. "Then why didn't she?" I ask softly.

"Why didn't she what?" Damon asks, confused.

"Why didn't Katherine kill Jeremy in a permanent fashion? I mean, she took a butcher knife and chopped John's fingers off. She was the one John was trying to warn me about, I'm positive of it. Why didn't she go after me?" I ask. "Something is off about this whole situation. What did John do that made her chop his fingers off and leave him to bleed out? Jeremy and I were in that house with her, completely defenseless. She could just as easily have taken us out as well and we would not have been able to stop her. Only she didn't do anything to us. I heard a sound upstairs that at the time I thought was Jer. She made that sound. Jer couldn't have. His heart had already stopped. I get the strangest feeling she was trying to alert me to what Jeremy had done. Why would she do that?"

Damon frowns as he thinks about it. "You're right. She could easily have killed you and the kid and no one would have known what caused your deaths. But she left you both unharmed. If you're right and she had been alerting you to the fact that the kid was in transition, that means she wanted to make sure he didn't wake up and use you as his source of blood to complete transition," he says softly, obviously puzzled.

"And all this reminds me of something else. I'm descended from her. I just know that I am. Isobel is also descended from her," I remark slowly. "You told me once that Isobel had tracked you down while you were in North Carolina. She already knew what you were. I'm quite certain you weren't the only vampire in the area that she could have gone to and talked into turning her. I'm willing to bet that she was sent to you, specifically. Who would have sent Isobel your way, Damon?" I ask him, already knowing the answer.

"Katherine," he realizes. "But why?" he demands. "She obviously didn't care how much pain she would cause me when I opened that tomb and realized she had never been in it. Even Anna said as much."

"From what Anna told me, Katherine also knew exactly where you were over the years. She knew exactly where you were, Damon. Think about it. She may have stuck to watching Stefan herself, but she obviously kept an eye on you as well. She had long-range plans for you. After all, she sent Isobel to you," I tell him. I frown thoughtfully. "I hung up with Stefan just before entering the house. I have not been able to reach him since then. Have you?"

He shakes his head, his eyes narrowing. "No. I tried calling him as I raced to your place after I hung up with you. It went straight to voicemail. That means his cell phone is off. After everything that's happened today, Stefan would not just turn his cell phone off. He'd keep it on in case anything else went wrong." He glances at me. "What are you thinking of?"

I grit my teeth before I decide I might as well tell him the whole mess I've been going through concerning Stefan. "You've noticed I haven't spent much time around Stefan, not since he stood me up at Miss Mystic Falls, haven't you?" I ask.

"Who hasn't?" he groans. "Everyone is wondering what the hell is going on with you two, myself included. I thought you would have gone straight back into his open arms as soon as we detoxed him off human blood."

I frown. "That's the problem. I don't think we succeeded as well as he is trying to make us think we have," I tell him.

He glances sharply at me as he finally turns up the long driveway leading to the boarding house. "What makes you think that?" he asks slowly.

"His eyes," I reply immediately. "His eyes are different when he's on human blood compared to when he's on animal blood. His eyes on human blood are like those of a rabid yet intelligent predator. Even at your worst, your eyes were never that crazed. Have you ever actually witnessed him feeding from animals since we supposedly detoxed him?" I ask as he pulls to a stop in my usual parking spot, turns off the car, and turns to face me fully.

He grimaces. "No. I never watch him do that. I find it too revolting," he admits. "When he goes hunting, I make sure he heads for the woods rather than the town before heading back inside."

I sigh. "Even if he does go into the woods, that doesn't mean he stops in the woods. His hunting trips have always been very long, sometimes lasting an entire day or even a whole weekend. That's plenty of time for him to vamp a few towns away and feast on the humans there before coming back."

Another highly colorful, extremely creative blue streak slips past Damon's lips. Finally, he closes his eyes and rakes his left hand through his hair, a fierce scowl falling over his beautiful features. "How could I not have seen the signs?" he growls. "I've seen him on human blood many times over the years. I've seen what he's like."

I squeeze the hand still holding mine. "We've both seen how crafty Stefan was when he was trying to get me to believe he was back on animal blood," I tell him. "I have a feeling that when he realized we were completely willing to starve him to get him back on it properly, he got desperate. Human blood is like a highly addictive drug for him. I realize that now. He knew that if he wanted to keep dosing up on that drug, he would have to make a few short-term sacrifices to throw us off the track. He knew he had to drink animal blood just long enough to get us to relax our guard. I have a feeling that he found some way to spike the animal blood you gave him with just enough human blood so that he would not fall back into a form of predatory hibernation." I take a deep breath. "But I could tell by looking in his eyes that something was wrong. Those eyes he turns on me terrify me like nothing I've ever faced." I sigh, releasing Damon's hand so I can turn and look back at my brother's body. He puts the car in park and turns it off. "How long before he wakes up?" I ask softly.

Damon sighs and climbs out of the car without answering. I know he's not avoiding the question. I know he realizes that we have to put Jeremy in one of those horrible cells in the boarding house basement before he gets anywhere near the point of waking up. I grab my purse and exit the car as well. I notice that Damon is already lifting Jer out of the backseat. As soon as Damon closes the back door, holding Jeremy in one arm, I lock the car and shut my door. I follow Damon into his beautiful home and down to the basement. I watch from the hallway as he gently lays my brother's body on a stone bench at the back of one of the cells. I note with relief that it's not the one that we had locked Stefan in. Damon examines Jeremy carefully, obviously searching for signs that he'll wake up soon. He then comes back out of the cell and shuts the door, sliding the bolt home. I look through the barred window at my brother's body. I shudder at the sight of him locked up and quickly make my way up to the living room, heading straight for the bar to get a strong drink in me.

"You're not going to stay with him?" Damon asks from the doorway leading down to the basement.

I pour the high-quality bourbon I found into a whisky glass, concentrating intensely so that my shaking hands won't spill so much as a drop of the fine alcohol. I repeat the process with a second glass before recapping the bottle and returning it to its position on the shelf. I turn around, grab up one of the glasses and take a long swallow before answering. "I can't stand to see him locked up like that. It's a million times worse than it was with Stefan. That's my little brother down there, Damon," I whisper, closing my eyes as I hold the whisky glass to my forehead while leaning against the bar. "I don't know how you managed to stay so calm when it was Stefan locked up. I know that despite all that hate and anger and hurt standing between the two of you, you would both gladly give up your lives to save the other."

I don't hear Damon's footsteps cross the floor but I do hear the faintest scrape of glass against granite as he picks up the glass of bourbon I poured for him to take a drink. "You're right," he says huskily after several minutes of silence. "I would give up everything, even my life, to save him if I had to. The only reason I didn't show how much it hurt me to have Stefan locked up down there was because I knew that if I cracked, you would have shattered." He lets out a dry chuckle. "Being an older sibling puts one repeatedly in difficult positions."

"Tell me about it," I mutter, taking a sip of bourbon as I open my eyes and look at Damon. "I know that I can't possibly be in the same room as him. Not until you've gotten him in complete control of himself. He could lose control for just an instant and end up killing me. That would be the last straw on his sanity. He'd go completely mad." I take a shaky breath, knowing that what I am about to do is going to be one of the toughest things I've ever done. "I want you to teach him how to live on a diet of human blood and teach how he can do so without hurting anyone."

His arm snakes across the bar and he grabs my chin to force me to look directly into his ice blue eyes. "Are you absolutely certain about that, Elena?" he asks softly, searching my eyes intently. "Once he's tasted human blood, he will never be able to handle going over to animal blood."

I stare directly into his eyes, letting him see just how certain I am. "I don't want my brother going crazy around human blood the way Stefan does. I want him to be able to control himself and his Craving no matter what challenges he faces," I reply firmly.

His eyes soften and he releases my chin. "And I don't want to face dealing with another Ripper," he agrees.

"Ripper?" I ask uncertainly.

"Stefan will never forgive me for this, but you have to know one of the worst extremes of vampirism," he replies, his eyes darkening with pain. "Some vampires, losing themselves completely to the Craving, get the merest taste or whiff of human blood and go on a killing spree, draining their victims dry and sometimes feeding so hard that they literally rip their prey to pieces in their need to get every last drop of blood. These vampires are called Rippers. Very few of them live to see their first decade, fewer still their second. Stefan is the only one I know of that has survived past their third. Rippers die young because their inability to control the Craving causes them to catch the deadly attention of humanity the second they try to feed. Humans kill most Rippers quickly. Others are taken down by our own kind so that they don't expose us all to the human race. Stefan has only survived as long as he has thanks to Lexi and I." He closes his eyes and grief washes over his features. "I was a fool to take out Lexi like I had. She would know how to bring him back from his madness. I was a fool to take out such a good friend to save my own hide."

I reach across the bar and cup his face with one hand. "You had your switch off, Damon," I remind him. "It took a lot of hell on my part to pry your humanity out."

He opens his eyes and captures my gaze with his. A lump forms in my throat at the tenderness softening his ice blue gaze. "I don't know what I would have done without you," he admits softly, covering my hand with his. "I will never be able to repay you for all you have done for me."

I give him a weak smile. "Well, you could start by promising me that you will never flip that switch again," I tell him seriously. "I would not thank you if you make me have to go through all that trouble again. And I would do so. Then I'd kick your ass for putting me through that shit a second time."

He chuckles before dropping his hand from mine and stepping away from my touch. "I think you broke the switch when you brought my humanity back, so I couldn't flip it even if I wanted to," he teases with a smirk. He downs the last of his bourbon quickly before changing the subject. "Anyways, I doubt Jeremy will wake before tomorrow. We should head to the hospital. Caroline is there, and her condition isn't too good from what I understand."

"But what if he does wake while we're gone?" I ask, casting a worried glance towards the basement door as I circle the bar to stand next to Damon. I had already finished my own bourbon.

"His leftover human blood will keep him alive for about thirty-six hours from when he first wakes up in transition," he assures me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and all but dragging me towards the front door. "He will be fine while we're gone. Katherine didn't kill him when she had the chance, which means she won't now."

I relent and let him finish guiding me to front door. But the second he opens that door, we freeze in shock at who is standing on the front step. A cold chill runs down my spine as I stare into a face identical to mine, as if my reflection in a mirror had come frighteningly to life. Damon draws me even closer to his side as his body goes completely rigid at the sight of his sire.

"Hello, Damon, Elena," Katherine Pierce greets, her lips curling up into a smirk as she crosses her arms. "Why don't we all go inside and have a seat? We need to talk."

Sarah: I know that was an absolutely evil cliffhanger, but I don't care. I hope everyone has enjoyed what I have written so far. Please review and tell me what you think.