Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries. All rights go to the respective owner.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Damon asks, barely able to contain his rage toward John. Honestly, I'm not too happy with my Uncle at the moment right now as well, so I see where he's coming from for once.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." John sets the final piece into the Gilbert device, invented by an ancestor of his same name over a hundred years ago. With one twist of the final piece to the long awaited puzzle, the device releases a loud, high-pitched and painful ring.
Damon and I clamp our hands over our ears. He stays standing for a few seconds, but my knees buckle immediately as I release a pained cry at the sharp pain settling into my head. Covering my ears did nothing for me, I still feel the pain set in like a splitting headache. Damon collapses a few seconds after I do.
I briefly notice John rush over to Damon and inject a syringe filled with vervain into his neck. Damon passes out almost immediately and if I were more able, I would try to get him out of here. John turns to me and pulls a different syringe filled with a silver colored substance out of his jacket.
I gasp at the pinching sensation in my neck, but it's nothing compared to the burning that travels slowly through my veins right before I lose consciousness.
The sound of something splashing is the first thing I hear when I start regaining my consciousness. Gasoline stains the air, filling my nostrils for a rude awakening. My eyes flutter open and I see Damon lying by my side. He brings a finger to his lips, telling me to stay quiet. I glance over to the stairs and notice John making his way up them, pouring gasoline on every step.
The burning in my veins is still very present and if anything it has only gotten worse. Once John has finished pouring the gasoline, he throws a lighter to it. The fire ignites and travels down every step until it reaches the floor and spreads to some bodies that I assume are vampires. Fortunately, the fire doesn't reach me or Damon.
John shuts the door at the top of the stairs. I immediately let out a sound of pure agony. I may as well be on fire, if the fire in my veins has anything to say about it. Whatever John injected into my bloodstream is taking quite the effect on me.
"Veena? What's wrong?" Damon drags himself closer to me with a grunt. The vervain must be taking quite the toll on him as well.
"John…he did something to me…" I bite out, doing everything I can not to scream at the pain. "I don't know what's happening, Damon…"
"We're getting out of here, okay? Just hang tight."
I press my forehead into the ground and try to take deep breaths. Several grunts and groans and some screams sound through the basement.
"Mayor? Is that you?" Damon asks.
I lift my forehead to look at Mayor Lockwood. Tyler's dad was a fellow with a temper. I had seen that back when Tyler and I used to date. What was he doing in a basement full of vampires?
"What are you doing here?" He asks Damon in a panic.
"I'm a vampire." Damon reveals. That seems to be quite the shock to him, because his face falls and he looks between Damon and I.
"And her? She's one of you, too?" He is completely disgusted, I can tell just by the sound of his voice.
"No, she's not." Damon growls and I realize he's defending me. "She shouldn't be down here. What's your excuse? The vervain didn't affect you. You're not a vampire. What the hell are you?"
The mayor scrambles on his feet to back away from Damon, but he backs straight into one of the tomb vampires that hasn't been caught by the fire.
"Mayor Lockwood." The vampire says in amusement, wrapping a hand around his neck and snapping it in one swift move before the flames swallow both of their bodies.
The fire on the stairs die down drastically, leaving only small bits of flames behind and Stefan runs down the stairs. "Damon!" He rushes over to his brother just as his eyes catch sight of me. "Veena?"
"Good to see ya..." I cough and gasp at a significant spike in the burning inside me.
"Get her out of here." Damon commands, pushing himself to his feet. "She's too weak, she can't get out of here on her own."
"What about you?"
"I'll be right behind you, just get her out, Stefan!"
I feel myself being lifted into someone's arms before the wind rushes by our bodies. I'm carefully set on the ground and I revel in the cool temperature the cement offers to my exposed skin.
"Damon, what happened to her?"
"John injected something into her bloodstream. We don't know what it is, but she went down when the device went off."
The voices of the people around me are starting to fade, but I am able to make out the sound of Elena's worried words as she touches my shoulder, trying to get me to respond to her. It's too late, though, and I find myself slipping into unconsciousness once again.
I woke up in the hospital about an hour ago. I was unconscious for a while, but the doctor says my condition is stable. The burning is gone from my veins and my mind is finally clear.
According to Elena, Bonnie did a spell to take the unknown substance, which happened to be some kind of silvery, shiny liquid with fragments of a mineral called pietersite in it, out of my blood before the doctors took my blood for some tests. As it turns out, she never actually deactivated the magic on the Gilbert device and let all the vampires, and myself, be effected by it. No one knows why I went down when the Gilbert device went off and neither do I. I'm not a vampire. I wasn't supposed to be harmed by it.
Apparently, Tyler was also affected by the loud noise from the device, which doesn't make sense either. It caused him to crash his dad's car with Matt and Caroline inside with him. Matt was fine, but Caroline got pretty seriously injured.
I so badly want to go see Caroline and make sure she's okay, but she's been in surgery for the majority of the day. She's my best friend and I can't stop worrying about her. Now all I can do is wait for Liz to get back to me on her condition.
I desperately need to change my clothes. The fabric of the clothes I'm wearing now has been tainted by smoke and the smell is everywhere. The doctor didn't take more than a couple ounces of my blood and said I should be okay to drive.
I make a quick stop at home to put on some new clothes and take my hair down from its ponytail. After grabbing a few other essentials, I drive quickly back to the hospital. It briefly crosses my mind that maybe I shouldn't be rushing due to the small amount of blood loss, but my body has been keeping up with it, so I decide to go with it while it lasts.
As I walk through the halls of the hospital, I find Elena and Bonnie, who both have worry painted across their features.
"She's weak." Bonnie says when I walk over to them. I instantly know that they're discussing Caroline's condition. Then, with slight hesitation to break the news, she says, "They don't know if she's going to make it…"
"What?" Elena and I ask simultaneously. Fear for my best friend's life settles deep into my chest as Bonnie wraps her arms around the both of us. Bonnie and I don't necessarily get along as well as she and Elena do, but we have our moments and this is one of them.
"Is there something you can do? Like…like a spell, or something?" Elena asks.
"She doesn't know how." I look over my shoulder to see Damon walking towards us. His gaze settles on me for a moment and there's something residing there, some sort of feeling, but I can't put my finger on it. "Do you?" He asks, reluctantly returning his gaze to Bonnie. He already knows the answer.
"No." Bonnie admits, shifting her weight to her other foot. "I don't."
"No, you don't," Damon confirms. "because it took Emily years to learn a spell like that."
"Yeah, well I can take down a vampire." Bonnie states confidently and I have to force myself not to roll my eyes. This isn't about who has more power over the other, it's about Caroline. That's what they should be focusing on. "That spell was easy to learn."
Damon ignores her and turns toward me and Elena. "I can give Caroline some blood."
"No, no way." Elena replies immediately. I give her a look of confusion. If it'll help her, why shouldn't we do that?
"No, no, no, just enough to heal her. She'll be safe in the hospital, it'll be out of her system in a day, she'll be better, Elena." He tells her. All the points he makes are valid and I completely agree with him for once.
"It's too risky, I can't agree to that." Elena argues. I speak up before she can go on.
"I can agree to it." I say with a raise of my brows. It should be an obvious decision, shouldn't it?
Bonnie nods in agreement. "Do it." Elena gives us both a look, which makes me think she isn't understanding the matter of life and death that is Caroline's situation. "This is Caroline we're talking about, okay? We can't let her die."
"I forward that opinion." I tell Elena, hoping that, for once, she can see how much this means to me and how crushed I would be without my best friend.
"Do it." Bonnie tells Damon.
"If I do this, you and me, call a truce?" Damon proposes. I nod at Bonnie encouragingly, but it doesn't seem to do much.
"No," Bonnie replies, as if it doesn't matter. I raise my hands in a questioning manner, because this is Caroline we're talking about, but she doesn't tear her eyes away from Damon long enough to see it. "But you'll do it anyway. For Veena."
My hands drop back to my sides as I raise my eyebrows at her statement. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Before I can ask her, she's already walking away with Elena right on her tail.
"I know this is probably the last thing you want to do right now, but we should talk about what happened tonight." Damon is speaking in a low tone and he's directing his words toward me to keep anyone from overhearing.
"Yeah, the Gilbert device somehow had an impact on me and none of us know why." I said, starting the conversation down the path I thought it was meant to go down. "And what about Tyler?"
"What? No, no, not that." Damon shook his head and sighed shortly, looking around to make sure no one was looking at us. "The…other thing."
"What other thing?" I ask in confusion, trying to think back to see if there's something that I'm forgetting.
"Really?" His question is posed more as speculation than it is an actual wondering. "Earlier, on the porch?" I continue to give him a look of confusion, unable to recall anything about a porch. "We were talking, lethargic feelings exposed, come on, we kissed, Veena."
I raise my eyebrows at this and give a short, unamused laugh. "Really? Is that what happened? That's a very interesting story, Damon! You should write a book about it." I comment sarcastically, crossing my arms. I don't like it when people try to mess with me and this is definitely crossing the line. I begin to walk away, but he grabs me by the arm and stops me.
"If you want to forget it happened, fine, but I can't." He whispers in emphasis. He's staring me down as if I've committed some kind of crime and he's the victim. My expression begins to soften as I try to rationalize his thinking, but before I can, Jenna calls my name. My eyes break away from his and he lets go of me, turning away from us.
"How's John?" Oh, right, that son of a bitch.
"Where have you been?" I question instead, trying to keep my anger towards that man to myself.
Jenna blinks twice before answering, "At the…fire department. I had to fill out a report?" She talks as if she's trying to jog my memory. "I told you earlier."
I only grow more confused with each second that passes. "No, you didn't."
She seems confident in her actions when she replies, "Yes, I did."
"No, Jenna, you didn't." I say with a little more conviction, because I know this never happened.
She stares at me for a few seconds. "Yes, I did."
"Oh…" Damon mutters, looking as if he's growing angrier as I grow more confused. "Mmm, you've gotta be kidding me."
It takes a few more seconds for the realization to hit me, but when it does, I immediately become pissed off and I know it shows on my face. "Oh, damn it all to hell."
The kiss that Damon was talking about… It wasn't me that he kissed and it wasn't Elena.
It was Katherine.
Damon and I share a look between the two of us. He seems…disappointed, somehow. Before tonight, I'd never looked at Damon in a way where I saw something like that between us. In fact, I'd spent my time trying to stay away from him and find an excuse to be bitchy toward him, and he did the same. That hadn't worked. We'd soon realized we were better off just agreeing to disagree, which eventually turned into something that could barely be called friendship, but that's what it was. He had told me things about Katherine and about his brother and about himself that he'd never spoken a word of to anyone else. I had listened and offered a witty comment or two in hopes that it would get a smile out of a man who rarely smiled. It had worked a few times, but more often than not, he held a scowl as he recalled things he wasn't fond of. I could never figure out why I stayed and listened to him complain about his personal shit and I never tried to analyze the situation, because being around him was…easy, in a way. I mean, it's never easy, but it's a break from the real world.
One day when he was telling me about his father, I had built up the courage to ask why he was telling all of this to me, and not someone else.
"Because you're the only one who's willing to listen to my tragic backstory." He'd replied in a sarcastic manner, taking a sip of his bourbon. It was his favorite drink. "Besides, you just might count as my only friend."
The manner in which he spoke was meant to be taken less than seriously, but I sensed there was some truth to his words.
"Don't let it get to your head, Salvatore." I muttered in the same sarcastic manner. We joked around a lot when one or both of us was intoxicated. Right now it was both of us.
"What's going on?" Jenna asks after a few moments of silence.
Damon breaks his gaze away, which, until now had been fixated on me. He clears his throat and scans the room briefly before returning his attention to me. "I'm going to go see how Caroline is doing. Are you two good here?"
I quickly nod before Jenna might get the idea to hold him here. He needs to go give Caroline his blood and then we can all rest peacefully. "Yeah, we'll be fine. I'll call you later."
He studies my expression again. His eyes are on me and they aren't looking anywhere else. His attention is completely and solely invested in my actions. A question lies in his eyes: 'Are we good?'
I swallow under his questioning gaze and glance at the floor briefly before nodding, eyes locked on his. "We're good."
He understands this, what I'm trying to say, and leaves us to go help Caroline. I take a deep breath as I try to make sense of how our…whatever this is has taken a sharp turn toward something new, leaving me with a nervous rush of uncertainty that has already rooted itself firmly inside of me. I exhale in disbelief at how fast and surprisingly this has made itself known in my mind.
"So…" Jenna starts, raising her eyebrows at me questioningly. "I think I know what we're talking about on the ride home." She states, inserting some much needed humor into her words. "Feel like explaining to me what that was?"
My eyes watch Damon's figure as it moves further and further down the hall. "If only I knew."
Damon returned a little while later, offering to give me a ride home. Jenna drove home without me. I had to stay until I knew Caroline was going to be okay, until I knew that Damon had given her some blood and that everything would be fine in the morning. She was beginning to get exhausted when I suggested she take herself home and I would find a way to get there later. I would have driven her, but I had forgotten my wallet at home in my rush to get to the hospital earlier, so I figured it was best if she left sooner rather than later.
"Veena," Damon finally broke the silence inside the car after about a solid sixty seconds of awkward tension between us. "We should talk about—"
"We don't need to." I interrupt. My elbow was against the window as my head rested on my hand. "You kissed Katherine, not me."
He glances away from the road to take a brief look at me. It's silent between us for another long moment before he speaks again. "What if I had been kissing you?"
"You weren't."
"Just indulge my curiosity for a second, Veena."
I sigh and lift my head from my hand. "Do you really want to play the 'what if' game, Damon? Are you sure that's something you want to do?"
"Absolutely." He answers with a tight smile. I raise an eyebrow and study him as I try to figure out the what if perspective of all of this. "Well?"
I resume my previous position, propping my elbow up and resting my head on my hand again. "Things would be awkward between us." I start, crossing my right leg over my left knee. "I wouldn't know how to act around you anymore. We would question every move we make around each other."
He narrows his eyes as the road passes under the car, leaving a blur of white lines against black asphalt. "We wouldn't want that." He states in a way that implies it's already happening. I sigh, because he's right. Things are awkward between us.
"Look, it doesn't matter, because you have all that history with Katherine and I don't do feelings."
"No, you like to pretend you don't do feelings."
"No, I don't do feelings, because when I allow myself to care it bites me in the ass every single time." I deadpan, my short temper making itself known. "You should be able to relate, of all people."
This time he doesn't say anything in response. He just looks ahead at the road with a contemplative look. I wish I could see what exactly he was thinking, but I can't.
Within the next minute or so, the car pulls up in front of my house. I immediately undo my seat belt and open the door to the car. Unfortunately, Damon does the same and I shut the car door a little harder than I maybe should have.
When we walk inside, Elena and Stefan are standing apart from each other with heavy looks. Elena seems confused and Stefan's face resembles the expression of uncertainty, that is, if I'm reading it right.
We soon find out that Katherine was just here. Elena walked inside a few seconds before we did. She just barely missed Katherine.
"Did she say what she wanted?" Damon questions, shuffling his weight.
"No." Stefan replies simply.
"Woman certainly knows how to make an entrance." Damon states, seeming beyond exasperated with the entire situation. Frankly, I don't blame him.
"She said she fooled one of us, at least." Stefan tells him, walking closer to his brother. "What does that mean?"
"She pretended to be Veena when I showed up earlier tonight." Damon says, giving me another glance. I don't say anything, rubbing my arm as I look anywhere else.
"I told Jeremy." Elena says as she walks down the stairs and into the living room. "I can't lie to him anymore." She says while shaking her head.
"You alright?" Stefan asks as he moves toward her.
"No, I'm not alright. I thought with the tomb vampires gone, things would get better."
"Yeah," Stefan puts his hands in his pockets and sighs. "We all did."
"Katherine was in the house, that means she's been invited in. What are we going to do?" Elena asks.
There's a few seconds of silence as we all contemplate this.
"Move." Damon suggests with a delayed smile, as if it's the most simple thing in the world.
I roll my eyes and rub at my forehead with one hand, something I tend to do when people are being idiots. Right now, Damon is definitely doing just that.
"Very helpful. Thank you." Elena tells him sarcastically.
"Jackass." I add in under my breath for her.
Damon shoots me a short lived glare before returning his attention to Elena. "Katherine wants you and your sister dead, there's zero you can do about it, you will be dead. But you're not!" He says with fake optimism. "So, clearly she has other plans."
"Right, and we need to find out what those other plans are, not provoke her in the process." Stefan interjects. "What happened tonight when you thought she was Veena?"
Damon and I both stiffen, setting our jaws as we look toward each other, then away again.
"To risk another frown line encroaching on a very crowded forehead," He says as he moves further into the living room. He has Elena's full attention. She's always been rather protective of me, and I of her. "We…kissed."
"And you thought it was my sister?" Elena questions for clarification.
"What do you mean you 'kissed'?" Stefan asks. I've observed that he becomes protective with anyone who is remotely involved with Damon.
"Well, you know, when two lips pucker and they go," Damon points to his lips and starts puckering them. Stefan makes a dash at him, but Damon speeds out of the way and to the other side of the room. "Don't be obvious, Stefan." He advises with a small bit of humor.
Stefan starts toward him again, but I move in between them, holding out my hand in warning. "Okay, buddy, calm down. He kissed Katherine, not me." I assure him. This whole overprotective thing is kind of annoying, but I can appreciate Stefan's intentions. I turn toward Damon. "I wouldn't do that." His smirk drops as we look at each other. I swallow as if I can get rid of the tension between the two of us with the action.
"We don't have time for this, guys." Elena says, stepping closer to the three of us.
"Later." Stefan nods at Damon, who does the same in a more sarcastic manner. He looks absolutely thrilled about the entire situation. I sigh to myself quietly, feeling guilty for some reason. He's been through a lot of shit today and I've just made it worse by giving him a hard time.
"John must know something." Elena glances between the three of us. "There has to be a reason why Katherine tried to kill him."
"She's Katherine!" Damon and I say at the same time. This causes him to smirk briefly. I can't help but to do the same, welcoming any sort of lightheartedness to the conversation.
"She loves playing games and you're fooling yourself if you think you're going to find out what she's up to before she wants you to know." Damon continues.
"No, actually," Stefan says. "Elena's right, John could know something through Isobel."
Ah, yes. Mommy dearest.
"Your mother, she was in touch with Katherine, so maybe we could go to the hospital; get him to talk?" Stefan asks, but the question is directed more toward Elena than anyone else in the room.
"I've got a better idea." Damon says.
Elena turns around and raises an eyebrow. "What's that?"
"I'm just gonna ignore the bitch." He seems so certain, and I can't help but to agree with his tactics.
"Yes, I second that notion, that sounds like a wonderful idea." I say before someone can speak over me.
"Is that smart?" Elena questions.
"If Katherine thinks she's being ignored, it'll lure her out, make her move."
"Yeah? Then what?" Stefan asks.
Damon shrugs. "Stake her. Rip her head off. Something poetic. We'll see."
"You seriously stayed here all night?" I ask Matt after I locate him amongst people in the hospital. The sunlight shines in through the windows, illuminating the generally gloomy hallways.
"Yeah, with the Sheriff."
"Just the two of you?"
Matt takes a breath and it takes me less than a second to register that something has been bothering him. "Stefan's brother Damon stopped by last night."
I decide that topic is probably not the best path to go down for either of us at the moment. "How's Caroline doing?"
"See for yourself." He says with a hint of a smile.
I follow Matt into Caroline's room. When I get there, she is lying in bed with her eyes on the television screen. She catches sight of us and smiles, sitting up in her bed. "Jersey Shore is on!" She says, eyes locked with mine, her familiar grin firm in her expression.
The sense of relief that washes through me is like a wave crashing against rocks. I rush toward her, taking her into my arms. I feel half of the weight on my shoulders lift with the realization that my best friend is all right.
"Ooh! Careful, still a little sore." She warns and I immediately release her.
"Sorry." I apologize immediately, feeling my eyes build up with a little bit of moisture. "Caroline…" I say, inhaling sharply through my nose. "I was so worried. Everything happened so fast last night and I—"
"Veena, none of this is your fault, okay?" She assures me, grabbing my hand. "You're my best friend. I would never blame you for this, even if it was your fault." She says with a wink.
I laugh through the emotions that are trying to take over. Seeing her alive and well is such a refreshing sight compared to the things I've been dealing with lately.
"My turn." Matt says, stepping in front of me, and before I know it he's pressing a kiss to Caroline's lips.
"Ugh, disgusting!" I whisper dramatically, wrinkling my nose.
"What? I can't kiss my boyfriend whenever I want to?" Caroline questions with a raise of her eyebrow once she's pulled away from Matt.
"Kiss your boyfriend on your own time. It's my time you're wasting." I tease and the three of us are laughing within the next second.
"So my vampire blood did its job and healed her, just like it was supposed to." Damon says over the phone. "Wow. Shocker!"
I roll my eyes, but a laugh breaks through the façade anyway. "Yes, your blood was the all-powerful solution." I sit down on my bed and smile faintly to myself. "Thank you, Damon. You have no idea what a relief it was to see her so healthy after what happened."
"What are friends for?" He asks. I can hear his smirk in his words and my smile grows before I remember the situation between us.
"Look, Damon…" I begin, tugging at a loose string in my bedspread. "I'm sorry I gave you so much shit yesterday. I shouldn't have made the situation worse by saying the things I did."
"Hey, don't apologize. It's not like you were having the best day of your life yesterday either. After all, your uncle did have you heavily sedated and thrown in a fiery basement. We all have those days."
I can tell he's joking once again and I smile instinctively. "Oh, yeah. Everyone has psychotic, control freak relatives who attempt to murder their own family. My uncle tried to kill me, your father actually did. I'm expecting something even crazier any day now."
I hear a faint laugh on the other end of the line. "Welcome to Mystic Falls, sweetheart."
"Why, thank you, kind sir."
"Speaking of last night, did Bonnie ever find out why you went down when the Gilbert device went off?"
"Not yet." I reply, straightening my legs out in front of me as I lie down on my bed.
"What was in the injection he gave you?"
"Small fragments of a mineral called pietersite. I'd never heard of it before. I looked it up today, and it's actually really pretty—"
"Did you say pietersite?"
"Yeah…" I said hesitantly. "Why? Do you know something about this?" There's a sharp break in the call, which I can only assume is caused by Damon setting down the phone. The line is silent, except for the faint sound of pages being turned in a book. "Damon? You still there?" I hear some shuffling on the other end before Damon picks the phone back up.
"You need to come over here. Now."
A/N:
Hello everyone! Welcome to my contribution to fanfiction! I hope you'll give it a read and fall in love with the story like I have.
Some of you may know that I started this fanfiction on Wattpad. That was almost two years ago. I started the story with no idea where the plot was going and the whole thing was a mess, really. Long story short, by the time I found out what the general direction I wanted this story to go was, I had lost the motivation to keep writing a story that was absolutely not what I wanted it to be. So, here I am, giving this fanfiction another shot! I really love the story and Veena and I hope you all will too!
So, please leave a review and let me know what you think! I'd love to hear some of your thoughts! They inspire me to keep writing. :)
Until the next chapter!
P.S.,
Pietersite is very beautiful. Do yourself a favor and look it up!