And Now, Night
by Waltzmatildah
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Klaus screams. A blood numbing mix of agony and triumph that splits the night sky in two. His head thrown back. Eyes already ablaze; an iridescent yellow inside his skull as the moment they'd fought desperately to stave off arrives with a resounding crack.
Caroline is the first to realise.
Amid the rumble and murmur of panic that rapidly descends. As Bonnie is swept up from her position on the charred earth. As the candlelight that surrounds them flickers and fades. Snaps to extinguished, lands them in a shadowy darkness, Caroline is the first to realise.
After all, she's been privy to the process on two previous occasions. Knows the excruciating steps that play out with an intimate familiarity that is tattoo sharp inside her skull.
"Damon?"
The noise that envelopes them is deafening. A roar and a rush of wind and wild weather that is completely incongruous with the trees that border their current location. Devoid of any kind of motion they keep but a silent sentry on the events as they unfold.
He fails to react. She screams this time. Blood curdling as his back arches. A paroxysm that should snap his spine but doesn't.
"Damon!"
Her fingers are in her mouth. She can feel the syllables that make up his name pushing past them as they tumble from her lips. She inches towards him. Two steps. Then five. Halts to frozen in her tracks as his head twists in her direction. As she catches his gaze, terrified and confused, and discovers she can no longer look away.
Faintly, over the monstrous roar that still circles them, she registers the sound of her own name being called. Manages, just, to tear her eyes from his and spin wildly, searching.
Elena and Stefan are about thirty yards to her right. He has Bonnie in his arms and Elena is vacillating between running her hands over her friend's lax face and screaming Caroline's name into the frigid night air. Jeremy is no where to be seen.
She turns back to Damon. Horrified to discover he appears unconscious, knows from experience that the reprieve it brings him will be momentary at best.
She is immediately correct.
His eyes snap open then. Wide, wired. And he pushes an outstretched hand in her direction. Fingers clenched. Unclenched. Pleading with everything that he has for help as his face writhes against the sodden ground beneath him. Mouth twisted into a perpetual scream that she can feel reverberate against her rib-cage.
Behind him, Elijah moves. Sits up suddenly as shattered bones piece themselves back together resolutely. She reacts then. Instinct and nothing else. Latches her fists into Damon's collar and pulls. As sure as she's ever been previously that Elijah will murder him. Will put the pieces together as quickly as she has done and do whatever it takes to end it now.
He lurches under her touch. Bucks against her chest violently as she gathers his rigid weight closer. Weighs up what her next step should be even as she's in the process of taking it.
Get them both the hell outta dodge.
Now.
Or however that saying goes.
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She drops him twice in her panic. He screams the first time as the back of his skull slams against the asphalt under her feet. On the second he is ominously silent, catches her wrists in his fingers as she attempts to scoop him back up.
"Leave."
Barely more than a sigh of consonants and vowels.
Immediately after; "What's happening to me?"
She doesn't answer. She doesn't need to. They both know full well.
"Leave me here. I'll kill you. Please, leave me here." Back arched, shoulders twisted to an angle that grates her own insides together in revulsion.
The house is in her line of sight now. The intervening distance will take her less than seconds to cover. She gathers him up again. Traps his flailing limbs in hers as best she can and scrambles up the gravel driveway. Barely registers the splintered wood of the front door as it vaporises under their collective weight.
Figures the basement is her best bet and only just manages not to tumble them both down the stone staircase in a bid to reach it in time. His skin is sweat slick and sliding. Her grip on him failing rapidly as she deposits him heavily onto the floor.
There is a metal chest pressed against one wall and she throws the lid open. Flinches violently as its hinges shriek out a protest in the sudden silence. She selects her weapons blindly. Has no time to weigh up the pros and cons of each. Realises, defeated, that none are likely to do what she wants them to.
She turns back to him then, pauses for seconds as his mouth arcs into a perfect O. Eyes slammed to shut tight.
And she is glad for that.
Uses his temporary blindness to plunge a vervain dart into the back of his neck. Has no idea how much of him is still vampire but figures that, for now, it is the best she can do.
He screams as the toxic poison floods his internal organs. Blood curdling. She shoves her fingers in her ears and screams back at him to drown out the sound.
Figures all that she has left is to wait.
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There is a commotion upstairs. Voices and footsteps that echo across the hardwood. She has her hands on his shoulders. Can feel the tension beneath the soaked cotton of his t-shirt as it rips through him violently.
He no longer screams. Exhausted she guesses. Adds the agony of transformation to the myriad battle wounds he'd already sustained in the fight that preceded the breaking of the curse, and to the toxic poison she'd set loose in his blood stream.
Guesses the cumulative effect to be a defeated kind of silence.
The voices are closer then. On the stairs. And she backs away from him. Arms herself with weapons she's not entirely convinced she knows how to use. Prepares to defend them both to the death if she has to.
"Damon?"
Elena.
The dip and curve of her chin is damp. It is only now that she notes she is crying. Dumps the weapons at her feet and swipes the back of her hand across her face defiantly before cracking the door to part-way open.
Trips her way up a step or two before calling out with a false air of nonchalance; "So, Elena, we have a bit of a problem."
And she's not exactly sure when she became a proponent of understatement. It's never really been her style.
Until now.
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She hears the roar then. A deep rumbling that signals the time is near. Maybe even upon them already. Elena's eyes widen. She'd been making her way steadily down the stairs but she freezes now. Stalls to still with her feet on uneven steps and her hands braced against the close walls.
One each on either side of her.
Caroline turns though. Tears back to where she'd come from in time to see Damon rise from where he'd been slumped. Iridescent eyes and bright, bright white teeth. Fur the same jet black as the midnight sky. He takes her breath away in that moment and it is only the shrill shriek of Elena's scream echoing through the cavernous space that snaps her back into action. Has her slamming shut the heavy barricade and sliding its lock into place. Desperately shoving boughs of wolfs-bane into its every crack and cranny.
"Who?" Elena falls over the word. Chokes on the rest of the sentence before she can push it past her chalk white lips.
"Elena?"
Stefan. Footsteps follow the sound of his voice. Tumble down the steps towards them. She doesn't think Elena registers his call. Has registered anything at all since the jet black and the iridescence and the bright, bright white...
"Caroline, who?" A heady shriek of hysteria laced through the eerie sound. There are tears streaking tracks to her dirt smudged chin. A deep scratch divides her forehead roughly in two. Weeps a pungent blood red that is no where near as distracting as it might have been.
Had the circumstances been at little less dire.
"Elena." She slides her palms into position against her best friend's shoulders. Defiantly ignores the way they shake and stammer as she does so. Stefan has reached the step directly behind them. His face appears as a confused tableau behind Elena's head.
"Stefan." She switches to the path of least resistance. Looks past Elena's begging, begging, pleading eyes and up at him instead. Hates herself for it even as she know it is her only option. "Stefan, you need to get her out of here."
She watches as he opens his mouth to speak. To question. Cuts him off resolutely. Over enunciates the words to make her point more than clear.
"Stefan. You need to get her out of here now."
There must be something in her tone, in the wild way she can feel her own eyes flashing, because Stefan's teeth drop closed with an audible clink and he wraps his arms around Elena in beat. Drags her back upstairs before she can launch some semblance of protest.
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Caroline turns back then. Lost in the silence of the empty stairwell. Her racing thoughts flitting uncontrollably between what is right in front of her and what might be going on elsewhere. Prays for Tyler silently. That he's strong enough to endure without her.
It's oddly still in the basement. The air heavy with anticipation and fear but no sound to accompany it. She thinks that makes it worse. She wants desperately to look through the bars but doesn't trust herself not to look away again.
She sinks instead to the very last step. Lets her head fall forward heavily, pillows it awkwardly with her forearms and loses herself in the scent of shampoo and dusty smoke as the events of the previous few hours replay, slide-show like.
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She's startled from her reverie by the echoed sound of pacing. Of the click click click of claws on concrete as the wolf she's trying not to think about lurches maniacally between the four walls of its temporary prison. She steels herself to check on him, more than convinced he's three quarters to tearing his own throat out and completely at a loss for how to intervene.
Knows from experience that pretty words and empty promises mean nothing to them when they're like this.
Mean nothing to them anyway...
He's turned away from her when she first blinks her eyes back to open. Back arched and mid-stride but moving towards the opposite end of the cell. That he'll turn in seconds is inevitable. She thinks he's somewhat calmer than Tyler had been. Wonders how much of that is the fact that he's vampire and not human for the rest of the month.
Let's the enormity of the situation finally sink in with some semblance of understanding and permanence.
Werepire? Vampwolf? A term completely unrelated to both? Huffs out a laugh at the inherent absurdity of it and launches back against the rear wall as he turns to face her finally.
Eye to eye.
"Oh, God..."
"Caroline?"
She'd been so lost in her thoughts that she'd failed to register the sound of footsteps descending upon her once more and as she looks up towards the sound of her name she sees Stefan come into view.
She tilts her head back against the wall behind her and laughs heartily. Ignores the edge of hysteria she notes and pushes her lips into position to form words.
"Stefan, oh, my God, Stefan..." and she's laughing so hard she's crying now. And the words she's spewing are barely intelligible. She's not so far gone that she can't recognise that. He steps passed her, determinedly, and she know then that it's not her he's come here to see.
His stony silence tells all the story she needs.
Only serves to accent her own raging lack of sanity in that moment.
"Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen?" She hiccups. He doesn't even twitch. "I mean, seriously? Don't you just think that it explains so much it's not even funny...?"
"Damon."
He breathes the word like it's a question. She knows without needing to ask that it is no such thing.
The sound of metal against metal startles her from her momentary crisis and she's between Stefan and the heavy door before either of them have time to register her motion.
"What are you doing?" Incredulous. Like the might have actually lost his mind.
"I don't-" He's staring at his own fingers. Like they're maybe not attached to the rest of him. Genuinely confused. Numb.
"Stefan?" And there's a control and steadiness in her voice that surprises even her. She wraps her hands around his and pulls him back towards the steps. "It's gonna be okay, I promise."
A lie.
But only a white one.
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They talk. Murmured sentences heard and exchanged without any real degree of understanding. Elena is upstairs with Bonnie. Klaus is dead. Elijah is missing in action. Alaric has Jeremy and Katherine.
Where the rest of the wolves are is anyone's guess.
Tyler...
She leaves him alone then. Leaves them both. Feels oddly unsettled about abandoning Damon. Like maybe she's the one responsible for him now. The burden that comes with saving a life? Figures they're oddly even now. In the karmic balancing act that is their lives.
Bonnie is awake. Has Elena's limbs wrapped around her so completely that it's initially difficult to determine where one of them ends and the other begins.
"Elena?"
Two pairs of eyes. Scared. Sad. Defiant.
"What's going?"
"Where's Damon?"
"What happened?"
All of those questions and so many more. She shrugs her shoulders. Offers the motion up as a silent explanation of her current inability to explain it all.
She has nothing. No possible semblance of an answer.
At least, not beyond the obvious...
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She makes them tea. Figures it's always what they're doing in the movies when catastrophes have unfolded. When lives have been turned upside down. There is always tea.
And so she makes tea.
Sets it in front of them noisily and nudges at the mugs until they take the hint. Sits and waits and watches until Elena no longer trembles visibly and Bonnie's eyes clear just a little more completely.
Can't help but to note the significant changing of the guard that has occurred between the three of them over the past few months.
Misses the way things were every bit as much as she loathes the insecurity that came with it.
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"I'm going down there."
Elena is standing before the sentence has run its course. Bonnie's hand wraps tightly around her left wrist. Instinct.
"No."
Beats Caroline to the punch by split seconds.
Elena shakes her wrist free viciously. Reiterates her statement, "I'm going down there. Stefan is there and-"
She doesn't finish. She doesn't need to.
They watch her walk away before Caroline takes the opportunity to slide into her abandoned spot on the couch. Slings her arms around Bonnie's shoulders desperately and figures she might stay that way 'til the morning sun brings with it some answers.
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She hears movement before she sees Stefan. He looks exactly the same and yet unfathomably different. Defeated.
Doesn't even look up from his toe tips as he moves past them and towards the stairs. Ascends them at something resembling a stuttered blur.
She feels Bonnie shift. Asleep now. And she eases herself out from under her limbs and contemplates her next move.
Up or down?
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There are dark patches on the knees of Elena's denim jeans. Caroline can smell the tears from strides away.
"Hey."
Elena twists her head sideways. Lays her temple against the saltwater damp and meets Caroline's gaze with her own.
"Hey, yourself..."
They're shoulder to shoulder now. And she reaches across, threads her fingers through Elena's tightly. Gives them a firm squeeze and prays the motion says I'm here for you, whatever you need as loudly as words ever could.
There is consistent motion on the other side of the door. She doesn't need to look through the bars to know what scene would reflect back. The steady inhale exhale of frantic jagged breath drags across her nerve endings like fingernails down a blackboard.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" Barely more than a whisper. And exactly which brother she's referring to, Caroline can't quite be sure. Figures the answer is the same regardless. Shrugs her shoulders, hates the way the indecisive motion has fast become her default setting. Pulls Elena in closer and settles in for the wait.
Her watch, the face a splintered spider of damaged glass, tells her dawn is within reach as exhaustion tugs at her eyelids, drags them to a shaded half mast.
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She hears faded murmurs. And the chalky scratch of fingernails against concrete.
Fingernails. Not claws.
Stretches to standing without waking Elena and dares a peek through the gap. Notes the remnants of clothing that scatter the stone floor. Fabric confetti.
He's sleeping. Curled into himself with the curve of his spine to the door, and she uses the blanket she'd retrieved earlier to cover him before waking Elena tentatively. Knows without needing to think about it that he'd loathe his current helplessness with the power of a thousand suns.
Elena rouses with a startle.
"Is he-" Stops then. Like she can't quite bring herself to complete the sentence.
Caroline steps out of her line of sight. Hands the babysitting duties over and counts the seconds and minutes off in her head 'til she can flee without feeling like she's abandoning them all.
Turns to tell her friend that she'll be back later, that she needs to shower badly, eat something, though she thinks she'll leave that part out, needs to check on Tyler and find her mom and maybe Matt and...
Turns to Elena and finds that it's all too little too late anyway as she scrambles her way across the stone to his side. Hovers her hands above his head with a flutter and shuts her eyes before letting herself touch him.
Gives Caroline all the permission to leave she could ever need and then some...
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She's barely gone a few hours before she's drawn back to the mansion. Walks into the living room casually before stopping dead. Admonishes herself for not being more aware of her surroundings.
"Caroline." A shallow tumbler of something amber tilts in her direction.
It's barely midday.
She doesn't think now is the time to question him.
"Damon."
He nods slowly. Like he's weighing up what his next move might be.
"You know, you should totally go into business..." His tone is forced light. The sheer exhaustion laced through every syllable betrays the mask he has slid firmly into place. She doubts he even realises how see-through he has become.
"Business? What kind of business?" She perches lightly on the arm of the sofa he's stretched across. Indulges his attempt to regain some semblance of dignity.
"Oh, I dunno. Some kind of expert consultancy service for supernatural beings facing their first transformation..." He trails off, eyes finding their way to his toes before snapping back up again deliberately. There is more than just flippancy in his message.
There is thank you and I'm sorry and a million other sentences that she knows he could never bring himself to say.
She offers back her version of you're welcome and thank you for not tearing me to shreds; "Do you think they make door plaques for that kind of thing?" Grins.
Thinks she might almost mean it.
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The End