The Arrival

Damon stormed into the hospital, to the room where all the bodies were kept, with Meredith following quickly behind him. "Stop, Damon!" she hissed, glancing around hoping that no one else was noticing the commotion.

Stefan, already sitting next to Elena's motionless body, was first to take her hand. "Elena," he said, and from his expression anyone could already tell what was on his mind. But before he had a chance to say any more, he found himself being slammed against the wall.

Damon had Stefan by the collar of his jacket. "You," he seethed. Stefan couldn't even look him in the eye. Damon slammed him against the wall again. "How could you let this happen? How?"

Stefan painfully closed his eyes. "It was her choice, Stefan."

"You-" but Damon just pressed his lips together angrily. He could barely think of anything to say. His little brother was an idiot. The eternal difference between them, from respecting Elena's choices to doing anything to protect her despite her decisions, had finally, inevitably, cost everything that Elena held dear in her human life. Damon raised his fist to hit Stefan across the face.

But everyone froze when they heard it: the unmistakable gasp of the resurrected.

Elena sat up. "Where...?" She put a hand to her head. Her memory was so fuzzy. The long strands of her dark hair fell across her face, casting shadows over her eyes. There was water, she remembered. Matt, unconscious beside her. Stefan...

"Matt." She looked around and the faces registered in her mind: Stefan and Damon, both at her bedside, and Dr. Meredith Fell, standing by the doorway glancing out into the hallway once in a while to make sure that no one else was there. "Where's Matt? How is he?"

"He'll be fine," said Stefan gently, but seriously. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know. I..." and then it hit her. "Oh god. I'm..." She looked from Stefan's face to Damon's, and from their expressions, she knew the truth. She looked at Meredith. "I'm in transition, aren't I." It wasn't a question.

Meredith looked like she was about to cry. "The vampire blood that I gave you yesterday. It was still in your system when you drowned."

"Elena, look at me. Everything is going to be fine," Stefan said, cradling her face in his hands. They locked their eyes for just one moment.

Damon snorted. "What are you, kidding me? This is NOT alright! Nothing is right!" He stood up and slammed his fist into the wall, shaking the room. "This isn't how it's supposed to be! This isn't what was supposed to happen!"

Stefan chose to ignore his big brother's complaints. "Don't worry, Elena. You'll be fine," he said, putting her hair behind her ear. "We helped Caroline through this. You'll be fine."

"No." Elena shook her head.

"What do you mean?"

"No. I can't," she said. She took Stefan's hand and squeezed it, and looked at Damon. "I'm not going to go through with the transition. I won't become a vampire."

-X-

There was no one around to tell Jeremy what the hell was going on. No one was answering their phones. The Salvatore brothers were ignoring theirs. Matt's and Elena's phones went straight to message inbox. Caroline...he had no idea where she was, but knowing what happened to Tyler, there was no way he could contact her about Elena right now. And Bonnie.

Jeremy hesitated for a long time, staring at the entry in his cellphone's contact list, before he finally decided that the awkwardness of calling his ex-girlfriend did not outweigh the possibility of learning what the hell happened to his very-possibly dead sister. It was all for nothing. After the phone rang four times, there was no answer. "Damn it," was all he could say. He hung up before he had to leave a message.

He put his cellphone in his jeans pocket and grabbed a jacket and the car keys. There was no way that he was just going to sit around and wait for news, or wait for something to happen. He opened the door and stepped outside. Before he could even get off the front porch, however, he felt a pair of eyes watching him from the street below. He froze, his eyes grew wide, and he swallowed in apprehension.

"Elijah," he said.

"Hello, Jeremy." There was a tone of graveness in his voice.

-X-

Bonnie saw Jeremy's phone call. She just chose not to answer it.

"A little trouble?"

Bonnie looked up to see Tyler's stoic expression, only she of all people knew that it wasn't Tyler speaking to her; it was Klaus. "It's never little. And thanks to you, there is always trouble around here."

"Aw, don't be so harsh, darling."

Bonnie ignored the pandering. "What are you going to do now?"

Tyler/Klaus smiled. "Well, let's just keep my survival a little secret between the two of us for now. I've got some things that I want to do before I let everyone know that I'm back. I need to gather my family of hybrids, for starters. Finish off this Alaric business."

"I spared your life for my friends," Bonnie said coldly, her voice trembling. "If you hurt Elena-"

But she never got to finish her threat, because her phone began to ring again. She checked to see if it was Jeremy again or something, but it was actually Caroline.

-X-

Caroline just so happened to be sitting in the hospital room by Matt's bed, sobbing. Matt, wearing a hospital gown and hooked up to an IV, was still unconscious.

Caroline had come upon Stefan as he dragged Elena's body out of the water. She had been running-away from Tyler's pain, away from Mystic Falls-when she reached the bridge crossing and saw the carnage at hand. She saw the half-dead Matt...and the very dead Elena.

"We can't lose you, too," Caroline whispered into Matt's bedsheets, sobbing quietly. "Tyler. Elena. Even Alaric. Please, not you, too."

She was at the end of her rope. Everyone that she cared about was gone. Even the sliver of chance of being with Klaus was gone-he was dead, too. Klaus was wrong. There was no future for her. At least, she couldn't see any future ahead of her without her friends there to be with her. She saw Damon storm into the hospital earlier, greeted by Dr. Fell, but she honestly couldn't care any less what they were talking about. She barely heard what Dr. Fell was saying to Stefan when they brought Elena and Matt to the hospital. Caroline just knew that Elena was dead, and that Matt was on the brink.

-X-

"You're out of your mind." That was all Damon seemed to be saying, and he was saying it quite a lot. Stefan, on the other hand, was completely silent. He couldn't make eye contact with Elena at all.

Elena took a deep breath. She could smell it. Blood. It was strange, the way it smelled so disgusting, yet impossible to ignore. It was everywhere. But she knew exactly what it was, and she fought against it. She took another deep breath through the mouth. "I died. That's all there is to it. Jeremy doesn't have to know. Matt doesn't have to know." And, she thought in her mind, Stefan and Damon could be brothers now. Because with her as a vampire, it would never end. She realized this now, that not only did she lose everything normal in her life, she was now unable to be the one normal person that linked the Salvatore brothers to the humans. Wasn't thaat always their plan? One of them would stay with Elena until the end of her mortal life? That was impossible now. She had to die. She looked at Stefan's bowed head. "This is my decision."

"Have I told you lately how much your decisions stink?" Damon spat. Elena knew he had a point, with how the trusting Elijah thing turned out and how she was now dead. But what other choice did she have? Elijah could have killed her on the spot, yet he didn't. And if it wasn't her, then it would have been Matt.

"You don't have to do this." Elena could barely hear Stefan, but he was very clear.

"Yes, I do," she replied. She looked at Damon, Stefan, and Meredith. "You guys don't have to stay and watch."

"You're right. I'm going to kill that bitch," said Damon. Everyone knew that he was talking about Rebekah. He stalked towards the exit, and walked right past Meredith.

Suddenly, he grabbed Meredith by the neck and slammed her into the wall.

"Damon!" Stefan yelled, but he was completely ignored by his older brother. Damon tore into Meredith's wrist and dragged her over to Elena, where he forced Elena's face towards the gaping wound. Elena's lips made contact with the barely conscious Meredith's wrist, and the horrifying realization appeared in Elena's eyes. She couldn't stop. She couldn't fight it. And so she drank.

"There," said Damon, a wild gleam in his eye. Stefan, on his feet, only stared. Damon laughed. He knew that Stefan wouldn't interfere. "Even with all your griping about letting her make her decisions, you still want her to live. I know." He dropped Meredith on the floor. "You can just stand there. I'll be the bad guy. And in the end, I'll be the reason that she's still here with us."

The brothers locked eyes for just one moment. Then Damon sped out of the room.