Author's Note: I hated the finale, for some reasons (NOT THE CAMARO, DAMMIT, JULIE, NOT THE CAMARO!) and loved the finale for other reasons (I BROUGHT RIC BACK FIRST, SUCK IT, JULIE!) and I would also like to say that I admire Mr. Somerhalder's acting immensely. But as crazy as the finale was, I did not mean to write this story: I was in my car driving across three states when the muse attacked and it was really dang inconvenient, but thanks to the long-suffering Mr. Trogdor (who very kindly listened to a LOT of TVD talk and took more than his share of driving shifts) we have a story anyway.

I wrote this right after the episode, when I thought that everyone that came back as a result of the spell came back as human, since they showed Tyler being human. That's been corrected in interviews, but I'm going to stick to my original setup.

Also, I claim no authority on spiritual/religious matters, I just use them as metaphors for the general human condition. Please try to resist burning me at the stake.

Sincere angst warning, my already-traumatized readers. Angst with a capital A and a "read at your own risk" skull and crossbones sticker. For that, I apologize. I wanted to write happy Camaro smut but I am my muse's bitch, not the other way around.


Chapter 1: Peace

"The candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night.

But ah my foes, and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light."

-Paraphrase of Edna St. Vincent Millay

ELENA

We buried his car.

Stefan took care of the details: calls and credit cards and heavy equipment rentals. All I did was sit numbly while the crane pulled the Camaro from the wreckage of the Grill and workers gathered every last melted scrap of metal and loaded them onto a flatbed trailer. After that, Matt took my hand and led me to his truck and we drove along behind as if it were a funeral procession, flinching every time a tiny piece blew off the flatbed in the wind, bouncing along the shoulder of the road to disappear into the weeds and grass like so much trash.

I made the backhoe operator wait to dig the grave until I could watch. I wanted to hear its jagged teeth ripping through the roots of trees, brutalizing the soil and leaving a gaping, dark void in the forest behind the boarding house. I wish I could have done it with my own fingers.

Of Damon, there isn't much left: after almost a century and a half, his body is made of magic and little else. After the Traveler's spell stripped that away, all that remained were the bones of a man I never should have met.

I wanted to bury them in the driver's seat of the Camaro, and Stefan never openly argued, but he didn't comply, either. He just took his brother's remains and cremated them, and he went to scatter the ashes alone. I don't know if it was in a place Stefan chose, or somewhere he and Damon talked about who knows how long ago.

This giant grave is Stefan's apology to me for that, but I don't care. Whether it contains ashes, bones, or charred metal, it's still empty. Damon is the kind of gone I couldn't even fathom until now, along with the rest of the magic I took for granted that was holding my whole world together.

Since the spell that brought us back turned us all human again, I can return to Mystic Falls and reclaim our home, though I can't remember why that used to be so important to me. I went back to the boarding house that Damon had to leave in such a hurry and found all of his things still in place. All but one leather jacket hung neatly in a row, his bed made perfectly, one half-empty bottle of bourbon sitting amongst his decanters because his favorite square one must have gotten broken somehow.

I went to his room as if I was returning to him, but instead it was like a museum replica, the colors a little duller, the scents nothing but pale, artificial ghosts of their former selves.

I wonder if we misunderstood the spell, if we turned the Other Side inside out instead of escaping it.

Because my whole life feels like a shadow self. Close enough that you can see what it used to look like, but far enough away that you'll never be able to touch it again.

At this travesty of a gravesite, carefully placed just outside the boundaries of the spell, my friends surround me: Ric and Jeremy, Matt and Tyler, Stefan and Caroline, and even Enzo, though no one invited him. I might as well be alone, for all the comfort they bring me.

Stefan and I can't look at each other, but I feel him wherever I am, like our grief expands from us in waves that shudder with the impact when they intersect.

I blame him. I blame myself, and Markos and Liv and Bonnie. I blame Jeremy and Rebekah and Silas and everyone who has brought us to this day.

Stefan and I stand on opposite sides of the grave as the backhoe crushes blackened steel with the damp soil that will erode it, breeding rust until it is nothing but minerals and fading memories, all part of the blood-soaked foundation of Mystic Falls.

I'm human now. I'll be dead before the last traces of this car are gone.

This should console me, but every breath I'm forced to take lasts a hundred hours, a thousand generations, a million individual explosions of pain. A fragile mortal lifetime isn't nearly short enough.

Once, all I wanted was to be human again, and then I began to want to stay a vampire forever, to watch history expand around Damon and me like a neverending play. And now, all I want to do is die, but I'm the wrong species to find my way back to him that way.

I can still remember when I wanted Damon out of my life for good. And worst of all, I remember one private, shameful moment when I asked God to take anyone, anyone at all, if he would just give me Jeremy back.

Prayers answered at the wrong time turn blessings into curses until I'm afraid to pray anymore.

Maybe it doesn't even matter. Maybe God disappeared along with the Other Side, swept up in that cold, unforgiving wind.

Has it taken Damon yet? Did it hurt him?

I blink, and a man's familiar face fills my vision like a violation.

My numb body jerks back into motion, into life, and I shove Stefan away, the zipper on his jacket scraping my palms as I stagger backwards and pain yanks up through my ankle as it twists on the uneven ground.

He catches me before I complete the fall that would have left me on crutches for weeks. This human body is as weak as I feel. I don't care: I hate it. I want it to suffer, because it took Damon's place so he couldn't get back.

"Don't touch me." They're the first words I've spoken since I asked him to bury the Camaro, and even I'm surprised by the disgust that fills each syllable fat and black with hatred.

Stefan flinches, sorrow tunneling ever deeper in his dark green eyes. There's something there that makes my stomach go unsteady and bottomless, and without even thinking, I know what it is. Awareness. Of how long suffering can continue, unremitting. He's already lived longer than I ever will, hurt for longer than I ever have.

He knows what is coming for us.

He doesn't let go of me, and when he speaks each word falls with its own individual gravity, scraping out of him like the sound of pain itself.

"Elena, I will bring him back."

I want to tear Stefan apart, to break my fingernails tearing bloody accusations into his perfectly smooth face. I want to bite him, rip pieces off with my teeth and chew and swallow them, raw and lumpy, into the churning blackness that lives at the center of me. His blood is Damon's blood. I want all of it and it will never be enough.

Caroline's voice is thin and a little unsteady as it breaks through the blaze of hatred that fills my whole mind. "Elena, say something. You're scaring us."

Us. They have an us.

And all I have is this breakable, hateful body that's stuck on the other side of where Damon is.

I nod. "What do I have to do?"

X X X

It takes longer than a day this time. It always does, when Damon's not around to spearhead the plan. Stefan finds a witch on the edge of bankruptcy whose ancestral home is about to be foreclosed upon. She's willing to do a little dark magic as long as the sacrificed person is willing, because foreclosure would mean she loses the ritual groves where her coven has practiced for five generations.

Stefan pays her off and gives her Bonnie's grimoire, with the spell she used to bring back Jeremy. No one is sure if it will work, now that the Other Side has no anchor. No one is entirely sure if there still is an Other Side.

I don't tell them that we're living in it.

Three of us volunteer to be the life traded for Damon's, and Caroline is furious at all of us, and keeps stubbornly making therapy appointments no one shows up for. In the end, it is Alaric who will be sacrificed.

"I'm used to it," he tells us. "Besides, I've been back for five weeks and if I stay any longer, I'll have to get a job to pay for my booze."

I don't know if Stefan is as secretly glad as I am that Ric volunteered. I don't want to die: not now that I know what it feels like to exist without existing. To wait for something that never comes.

But it has come. Five weeks have passed me by and today is the right cycle of the moon to give the utmost power to the spell.

I wake up at 3 A.M. though we won't do the ritual until afternoon. These days, Stefan's always at Caroline's new apartment near Whitmore, and Jeremy still lives with Matt and Tyler, so it is just me in this cavernous tombstone of a house. I like it, because the slow groans and creaks of its ancient skeleton sound like they are mourning along with me. But this morning, it feels particularly empty because I know by nightfall, it won't be.

When I go to my closet, I really see the clothes there for the first time since I became human again, and I choose carefully, trying on and discarding items until the sun comes up. In the end, I wear an old fire-red Henley because I can remember exactly how Damon's smirk looked when he pinched the front of it to drag me in for a kiss. Over it, I wear one of his jackets, retrieved from his closet down the hall from where I've been sleeping.

I pause in our old bedroom, the first time I've been here since That Day. I close my eyes and try to imagine Damon here with me. In just a few more hours, I will be able to touch him. I can roll across his bed with him and sink into the warm embrace of the water in his bathtub. I can see the glint in his blue eyes when he teases me shamelessly about if I missed him while he was gone. I can hear the rumble of his groan when he starts to climax, his body clamping taut between my thighs.

I open my eyes, and the room is completely silent.

Hope is a language I don't speak anymore and I'm fumbling the pronunciation.

I force my lips into a smile, just to test how it feels, and the dry skin cracks as it stretches. My face sags once more and I lick the droplet of blood from my lips and leave our room behind me.

The car stays precisely at the speed limit for hours as I drive to the grove where we'll do the spell, and I wait there all day. My stomach growls, and eventually, I have to sneak off into the bushes to pee. I hate being human and I can't seem to remember to take care of this body that I'm in.

Everything feels duller now, all my senses blunted except for pain. It's sharper, it takes longer to wane and I feel everything, every stub of my toe and throb of a headache, every day that passes without him.

Stefan shows up before all of the others and I'm a little surprised that Caroline's not with him. He doesn't say hello, just sits down quietly by my side. I'm grateful that he doesn't push me and for a moment, I miss the close friends we used to be.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the time. Not yet.

The wind riffles through the trees but I can't hear the edges of the leaves scraping together the way I used to be able to, or the different sound when they are blown into the bark of a smaller branch. It all sounds the same now. Boring, and forgettable.

"When we get him back," Stefan asks, "will you stop hating me?"

I can't look at him. I check my phone one more time.

"I never hated you for dying," I eventually offer, because I know that's what he thinks.

"But if I wouldn't have died, Damon never would have ended up on the Other Side," Stefan says, his voice almost aggressive in its urgency. "People have been trying to kill him since we were boys and no one had a chance of taking him down until he decided he was ready. And that was all my fault."

"He could have lived, if he'd wanted," I say, picking up a stick and snapping it viciously because I want to hit Stefan and I won't let myself. Not today, not here. "Damon was always thinking three steps ahead of the rest of us and he knew there was a good chance that the spell to bring you back would fail. He could have compelled a human to strike a match in the Grill, or even just waited for the stove in the kitchen to spark off an explosion." I shred the next stick, splinters jabbing carelessly into my skin. "He could have done his best to save you and lived out his life with me. But instead, he chose to live or die as you lived or died."

Stefan seems to shrink, his head bowing heavily as I erupt with the words that have been filling up all the space inside me for weeks.

"I hate you because he chose you."

I feel irritatingly empty once I've said it. I thought it would be a relief to finally throw all of this at Stefan, to let him take all the blame he deserves. But it's weirdly anticlimactic and I sag back against the tree, throwing the torn remnants of my stick. It doesn't go very far.

Stefan starts to speak and then stops himself, shaking his head as his hands rub up and down the legs of his jeans. The clothes fit poorly because of all the weight he's lost, and his cheekbones look sharper now. Caroline says he never remembers to eat if she doesn't cook.

He takes another breath and this time, the words come hard and fast, like they jumped out without his permission.

"You could have stopped him," he says bitterly. "You could have broken his neck and found another way to trigger the explosion. He would have woken up after it was all over, I'd have been alive, and we'd all be together."

I look up now, matching the wounded anger in his eyes with the storm in my own.

"I needed to show him that I loved him the way he truly was, that I supported his decisions. And the ugly truth was that he couldn't live without you, I couldn't live without him, and only one of us could have our way."

I turn away and Stefan doesn't speak again.

It's almost an hour later when Caroline and Ric show up together, and I stand to greet them. The witch, Tara, arrives only a few minutes behind them, carrying Bonnie's grimoire and wearing plain black pants and a '49ers jacket. Her face is plump and round, her skin a smooth dusty color only a shade or two darker than my own, and when she stops in front of us, her kind grey eyes meet mine first.

I wait for her to say hello or ask about the payment we promised, but she just looks at me for a long moment and then kneels down right on the leaves of the forest floor, heedless of the chilly fall wind that blew in with the afternoon hours.

Tara opens the grimoire, the sound of turning pages loud in the space where we all stand, loosely surrounding her.

The witch looks up at Ric and he shifts self-consciously. Even with my useless human nose I can smell the whiskey on him, and I'm sure she can, too.

"Are you certain this is what you want? You need to choose for the right reasons," she says sincerely, and I like her a little better for asking, even though I know she needs the money and there's no way I'll let her leave here without doing the spell.

Ric's lips kick up at one corner. "I'm not sure I've done most of the things in my life for the right reasons."

A weight drags at my chest as I suddenly realize this is the last time I'll see him. I should have visited Ric more, in the weeks leading up to this. I just didn't know how to spend time with him, because I never have anything to say anymore.

I reach out and take his hand and it takes him a moment to squeeze back, he looks so surprised that I've touched him.

"But you've usually done the right thing anyway," I remind him, and swallow. "Ric, you don't have to do this," I say, and it hurts to get the words out because I really mean it. We have to do the spell, somehow, with someone. But it doesn't have to be Ric.

"This is what I want, Elena," he says gently, and squeezes my hand. "Don't worry. I'm a pro at dying."

Tara smiles, because we told her his whole weird history, and then she laughs lightly and Caroline joins in, her voice too high-pitched in a way that makes me feel jittery.

The witch starts to chant. She does it quietly, unlike Bonnie used to, and the wind picks up so slowly that I don't even notice it's changed until it whips my hair across my face.

I gasp, my body coming alive in a rush like I just transitioned all over again. I can feel my skin rubbing against the fabric of my clothes and the muscles in my legs and back, stiff from sitting in the woods all day. My heart pounds heedlessly against my ribs like it used to every time I saw Damon and I wonder if his spirit is here already, if he's watching.

This time, I really believe he might be.

I turn to Stefan, my eyes wide, and his are so intensely, cuttingly green they almost hurt. He smiles with pure exhilaration so he must feel it too, this must be real. Damon is here.

The witch reaches out without opening her eyes and Ric squeezes my hand once with a reassuring smile and then steps forward, letting me go and reaching for the witch's soft fingers instead.

She grasps him and the colors of his body start to fade, his shape going vague. Unexpected tears sting my eyes and my lips form Ric's name but no sound comes out.

Caroline stifles a cry and hugs her arms nervously around her body. Stefan moves behind her and wraps her up, holding her so tightly that I'm not sure if he's comforting her, or himself.

And then the wind stops.

Tara's gray eyes pop open, her lips pressing together slightly. She lets go of Ric's hand and he's abruptly as real-looking as I am, his hair messy from the wind and one corner of his collar flipped the wrong way.

He glances at the ground, then at me, and frowns when he sees that my eyes still focus on him.

"Is it…done?" he asks.

"Your friend isn't there," Tara says, and closes the grimoire.

My empty stomach clenches like a jagged fist, acid climbing up my throat as my heart seems to stutter, the beats throbbing like a new bruise.

"Does that mean he was…swept away?" Stefan asks immediately. "Like the others?"

"Or did the Other Side disappear with Bonnie?" Caroline asks. Stefan's arms fall away from her as he takes a stiff step to the side, like he can't stand to touch her, or anyone, in this moment.

Tara pushes back up to her feet and brushes a stray leaf off the grimoire.

"The Other Side was created by a spell," she explains gently. "When the Travelers overwhelmed it, as you told me, it nullified one of the central assumptions of the spell. From there, the rest would have slowly unraveled. The wind you spoke of is one side effect. The loss of the anchor is part of the process as well, but not the end of it. The Other Side is still there. For how much longer I can't say, as it's shrinking all the time." She presses the grimoire into her chest, her knuckles squeezing the edges. "But I got a good lock on your friend's energy signature from the objects you gave me and I can tell you for certain that he's not on the Other Side."

"Well, he was a vampire and he died!" Caroline exclaims. "Where else could he go?"

"Not everyone supernatural stays on the Other Side," Tara explains, tucking locks of her short dark hair away from her face. "Some move through to…"

"Hell?" I supply, my tone so raw I almost don't recognize it.

She winces. "My coven has other names for it. We don't believe it's quite the same thing. But yes. When the Other Side started to unravel, people went instead to where they would have ended up eventually."

"So all supernatural creatures go automatically to hell?" Caroline says, her mouth falling open a little. "Or only if you've killed someone? What about witches? What about werewolves who don't trigger the curse?"

Tara holds up a hand. "Wait, wait, I didn't mean that everyone is damned. Some people pass on as well, to a place of rest. But you can't go there automatically, because acceptance is necessary for grace."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ric asks sharply.

"It means that if you cannot forgive yourself, God doesn't have the power to grant you absolution," she says kindly, her eyes steady on his until he glances away, rubbing the back of his neck.

"So how…" I have to stop and swallow several times. I can't unravel, not right now. I have to keep standing and speaking until this witch tells me what I need to know. "How do we know which place Damon went to?"

Stefan pales at the sound of his brother's name. Caroline takes his hand and this time, he doesn't resist.

"One of our coven can speak with the dead, so I've had some experience with this," the witch explains. "There's a fairly predictable pattern, actually, though the crumbling of the Other Side is denying people the time some of them need to come terms with themselves. Supernatural creatures have more regrets than most."

Tara hands Ric the grimoire, and slides her hands into her jacket pockets.

"Can you tell me how your friend died? Was it a good death, something he might have chosen, or was it something that would breed resentment, dissatisfaction or guilt?"

I want to scream at her that it doesn't matter, but I force myself to think about it the way Damon would have. He saved his little brother and his best friend and defended his hometown from those who would have invaded it. During his last moment, he was holding my hand, knowing that I was with him, no matter what. He died with absolutely unflinching courage, his foot stomping down on the gas pedal even as a bullet hole blossomed in his chest.

Stefan says it for me. "It was a good death. Exactly…" he falters, and coughs once before he can continue. "It was the one he would have wanted."

"I think he would have rather had Klaus as the bullseye in the middle of his target," Ric mutters, "but yeah."

Tara nods, her eyes sympathetic. "And what about the major relationships in his life? Was there a fight, a promise un-kept? Did he have anything to come back for?"

"Us!" I scream it, the word howling up through the trees. "He was supposed to come back for us."

The lines at the edges of Tara's eyes deepen but she doesn't take a step back, though she looks a little like she wants to. "Honey, no one gets to die at exactly the same time as everyone they care about," she says, very softly. "If you are loved, and you know it, that's as much as any of us can ask for."

Caroline darts an uneasy glance at me, and Stefan closes his eyes. I can see tears shining in his lashes as he fights to keep his face composed. Ric coughs, looks back toward where we parked the cars, then coughs again, scrubbing the heel of his hand across his face like he has an itch.

"I think your friend has found his rest," Tara tells us all. "And that's a kinder fate than he could ever hope for if he kept on living in this crazy world of ours." She nods once, and steps back. "I am truly sorry for your loss."

I fall to my knees, but the pain of the twigs breaking beneath the weight of my bones isn't nearly enough.

He is at peace, but there will be none for me.


Author's Note: So sorry, dear readers! Feel free to vent, scream, and otherwise fill the review box below with bitter tears after that ending. No weapons, if you please…and if you must bring them along, make sure they're sharp and creatively shaped ;)

We have two chapters today folks, because I'm not quite mean enough to end on that note. But first, I have to thank two very talented ladies for their support and input on this story:

Goldnox, who I would rightfully hate for her overwhelming amount of pure creative talent, if it weren't for the fact that she's an incredibly hardworking beta, painfully funny, and a steadfast friend to me on my best days as well as my worst. I forgive you for being so awesome; I know you can't help yourself.

If you'd like to read some of the most addictive New Adult style AH romance out there, try her new story "Order Up" and just SEE if you can resist falling for her young, sweet Damon (just try, I dare you. Betcha last less than three paragraphs).

And to mrsl488, for lending her well-practiced analytical eye to this fic. If you're looking for what to read next over the long, lonely hiatus, try her new book review blog readsandreviews dot com. She does easy to read, well-balanced reviews and has down to earth taste in books that is a good match for what most of us here on the site are looking for, so her blog is like a free service that keeps you from having to ever read mediocre books- just read whatever she recommends and you'll never go wrong. Also, she just did a review of one of my favorite books of all time, "Sea of Tranquility" by Katja Millay, so go check that out.