A/N This is the last part of The Night of the Comet. Enjoy.
Jenna looked up from the kitchen counter where she and Elena were preparing dinner as Jeremy walked into the house.
"Jeremy? Jeremy, where were you?" Jenna hurried out of the kitchen, an apple still in hand, as Jeremy headed up the stairs.
"More stoner stories? Look, Jenna, I get it, you were cool. And so that's…that's cool." Jeremy murmured.
"Oh, no, no, no!" Jenna hurled the apple at Jeremy, hitting him in the head.
"Ow! Why? Why… why did you do that?"
"Listen up! Quit ditching class or you're grounded. No discussion." Jenna yelled. Jeremy just smiled and gave her a thumbs up.
"Parental authority, I like it. Sleep tight." He walked up the stairs towards his bedroom. Jenna groaned in frustration.
"And stay away from Malia until you're sober! She's screwed up enough as it is!" She added in a yell. Malia looked up from the couch.
"Gee, thanks." Jenna visibly jumped and turned around.
"Jeez! I thought you were in your bedroom."
"I can slip under the radar easier than you might think." Malia rolled over onto her side and buried her face in the pillow again without another word. Jenna and Elena looked at each other. One teenager was stoned and the other one was acting crazier than usual… Jenna glanced at a picture of Grayson and Miranda hanging on the wall and then turned and walked away from it, shaking her head.
Ava sat on the couch in the Salvatore Boarding House, watching Zach and Stefan argue in front of her.
"What is Damon doing here? Why did he come home?" Zach demanded.
"Because I came home. He wants to make my life miserable. That's how he enjoys his."
"Well, he's putting us all at risk. This girl in the hospital could talk."
"She won't. I took care of her." Stefan explained.
"You're sure?" Zach pressed.
"I'm not sure, Zach. I don't know how well it worked. I'm not as strong as Damon."
"So what happens if it doesn't work?"
"I don't know. I'll deal with it."
"And the other girl? Malia Gilbert?" Zach added. Stefan ran a hand over his face. Ava stood up.
"She hasn't said anything to either of us. We don't know what she's going to do."
"Well, I would figure it out if I was you." Zach told her. Ava nodded, hard and fast, in agreement. Zach turned back to Stefan.
"Is she worth it? Uncle Stefan, this girl you came back for?" Without waiting for an answer, Zach hurried out of the room. Ava collapsed back on the couch again and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
"I've called Malia exactly thirteen times since school got out. She hasn't picked up or called me back. I've texted her twenty-one times throughout the day and she hasn't texted me back. If I have to go to Diagon Alley and buy an owl to send to her…" Ava trailed off as she got to work texting Malia again.
"Do you think she would be at the celebration, the Night of the Comet?" Stefan asked.
"Malia doesn't do celebrations unless there's gift-giving involved. Christmas and her birthday… that's about as much celebrating as she can do in a year unless Jess or I can rope her into a couple other birthday parties. She'll go to ours, no problem, but it's other people that she has a problem celebrating. I mean, a couple years ago, she tried to convince her parents that she and Elena should have separate birthdays so that she got a whole day to herself where people celebrated her birth. She really worked hard on her argument of why it should happen. It didn't work and I think she's still a little bitter about the whole thing." Ava rambled, finally stopping herself and taking a deep breath.
"So is that a no?" Stefan asked.
"That's a maybe… I don't think I know her very well at all anymore. Elena will be there and we can find out where she is from her. If all else fails, we can bring out the big guns." Ava mused, standing up and grabbed her jacket from the back of a nearby chair.
"The big guns?" Stefan echoed, confused.
"Jeremy. Get Jeremy to bring her to us. He loves nothing more than to help me and Jess and Malia enact our evil plans. I'll come up with some excuse and I can guarantee she will be delivered kicking and screaming into our custody within minutes." Ava said with a grin. She nudged Stefan's shoulder to get him moving.
"Let's go to the town square."
Elena and Jenna had Malia by the arms, practically dragging her into the town square where the Night of the Comet celebration was already in full swing.
"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity." Jenna was saying.
"I don't care. Let me go." Malia squirmed to get free. Jenna released her. Although surprised, Elena did the same.
"Fine. Go home. Mope about something you don't feel inclined to tell us about. But you hear Mr. Tanner. We need improvements around here." Jenna huffed and walked away. Elena looked over at Malia.
"I know that we've never been the closest of siblings, but… Can't you tell me what's going on?"
"You would call me crazy."
"I always call you crazy." Elena said with a laugh. Then she saw Malia face and turned somber again.
"Sorry."
"I don't want to talk about it. It's just… Stefan isn't the guy you want to hang around." Malia told her. Elena sighed.
"What is it with you and him? What happened?"
"It was intense, it was frightening and I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Stay away from him." Scaring her away from Stefan was Malia's first part of her plan. She had had forty-eight hours of very little sleep and a lot of deep thought and was now calmer. Her boldness was returning, even if she was still more than a little frightened at the fact that vampires existed in her own home town.
"Wait, what?" Elena asked, frowning. Malia spotted Stefan and hurried away from her sister. To make sure Elena wasn't on her trail, she zigzagged through the crowd for a moment until she walked over to Stefan.
"Stefan." She greeted him curtly as she reached him. Ava bounded over.
"Malia, I-." Malia held up a hand to silence her, which worked, and kept her eyes on Stefan instead.
"I was thinking… Why would a big bad vampire be so afraid of one girl knowing his secret? I couldn't do anything. No one would believe me. But what if someone would? I mean, if you're trying so hard to keep it a secret from a girl who's practically been labeled 'crazy' since last summer, you have to be scared of someone finding out." Malia asked, folding her arms across her chest.
"Who did you tell?"
"No one. Yet. If you ever come near Elena, Jeremy, Jenna, Jess or even Caroline or Bonnie... Then I'm' going to go straight to the sheriff. Maybe she doesn't believe me… Maybe the mayor will. There's got to be someone in this town in power that knows about vampires or you wouldn't be so keen to keep your secret." Malia actually smiled at Stefan's discomfort.
"I believe that if you wanted to kill me, you would've killed me. I also know that you saved me last summer. So I'll play nice. You can say goodbye to my sister. After that, stay away from everyone I care out or I will personally lead the town to your doorstep and light their torches for them, got it?"
"Malia-." Ava started again, sounding desperate, but Malia shot her a look that silenced her.
"And you can stay away from me too. You might not be a vampire, but you're protecting one."
"But I-."
"Stefan, Ava, hey." Elena walked over to them, giving Malia a familiar weird, concerned look.
"Hi." Stefan returned.
"Enjoy this conversation." Malia gave Stefan a fake smile and walked off. Ava, looking ready to cry, turned and hurried the other direction.
"You know, that comet… it's been traveling across space for thousands of years. All alone." Stefan glanced up at the sky and Elena followed suit.
"Yeah, Bonnie says it's a harbinger of evil."
"I think it's just a ball of snow and ice, trapped on a path that it can't escape. And once every one hundred and forty-five years, it gets to come home. I'm sorry about yesterday. I wasn't myself."
"You seem to spend a lot of time apologizing." Elena noted.
"Well, I have a lot to apologize for. Yesterday, that wasn't about you, okay?"
"You didn't tell me that you had a brother."
"We're not close. It's, uh… it's complicated."
"Always. He told me about your ex. Katherine."
"What did he say?" Stefan asked, looking over at her.
"That she broke your heart."
"That was a long time ago."
"When you lose someone, it stays with you, always reminding you of how easy it is to get hurt."
"Elena…" She turned to face him, finally, but she was looking anything but happy.
"I don't know what you did to my sister, but this… this isn't happening until Malia and I can straighten things out with each other, alright? We met, and we talked, and it was epic, but… then the sun came up and reality set in." Elena blew out her candle and walked away.
Malia stood in the bathroom at the Grill, splashing water over her face. She was exhausted, she was half-certain that Stefan was going to come after her in all his vampire power and her bluff of saying that there was some kind of secret vampire counsel might have been just that: a bluff. She straightened up and glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked horrible; even she had to admit that to herself. She leaned down to splash more water on her face, trying to keep herself awake until she could go home and crawl into bed.
"Malia." She jumped and whirled around, searching for whoever had called her name. There was no one there. She shook the excess water off her hands, turned off the faucet and headed for the door. Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. In the next second, she was on the very edge of a roof. She struggled to get free and was spun around by the man holding her. He locked eyes with her.
"Don't scream." As much as she wanted to, she couldn't make herself scream. She looked at him in horror.
"No, no…" She murmured, barely getting the words above a whisper.
"Shush, I'm not gonna drop you." He assured her. Stefan jumped onto the roof.
"Damon…" He warned. Damon just smiled at him.
"Not bad. Have you been eating bunnies?"
"Let her go."
"Really? Okay." Damon started pushing Malia off the roof as she struggled to brave her feet against something.
"No!" Stefan cried. Damon stopped.
"Ugh, relax." He pushed Malia towards Stefan, hard. She stumbled into his arms and then jerked back from him.
"I don't need her to be dead, but… you might. I heard her little threats to you earlier, brother, and I've got to say… Gilbert Barbie's got a good head on her shoulders. Bold, too. I like that." Damon gave Malia a smile as she glared at him.
"If you couldn't fix it before, I don't know what you can do now. Vicki, Malia… You've got problems, brother. Your choice of lifestyle has made you weak. A couple of vampire parlor tricks is nothing compared to the power that you could have, that you now need. But you can change that. Human blood gives you that." Damon grabbed Malia by the arm and pulled her over to him. He bit into her neck and she still wasn't able to scream out in pain. He let her go and she fell to her knees, blood pouring out of her neck. Stefan looked away from her.
"You have two choices. You can feed and make her forget. Or you can let her run, screaming 'vampire' through the town square."
"That's what this is about? You want to expose me?" Stefan demanded.
"No! I want you to remember who you are!"
"Why? So what, so I'll feed? So I'll kill? So I'll remember what it's like to be brothers again? You know what, let her go. Let her tell everyone that vampires have returned to Mystic Falls. Let them chain me up, and let them drive a stake through my heart, because at least I'll be free of you."
"Huh. Huh. Wow. Come here, sweetheart." Damon pulled a struggling Malia over to him again.
"No, no, don't, please don't." Malia cried. Damon looked her in the eyes.
"You're not going to tell anyone about vampires."
"I'm not going to tell anyone about vampires." She repeated tonelessly. Damon nodded and released her. She stumbled back from him.
"She'll know about vampires, she'll be tormented by the knowledge… but we're safe!" Damon announced to Stefan.
"It's good to be home. Think I might stay a while. This town could use a bit of a wake-up call, don't you think?"
"What are you up to, Damon?"
"That's for me to know and for you to… dot dot dot. Give Elena my best."
Stefan pressed a large bandage onto Malia's neck as they sat in the dark, abandoned Gilbert Clinic.
"He's… he's messing with my head… Why? What did I do to him?" She was sobbing by now.
"Humans are just games to him. Look, Malia, I'm sorry. I'm doing my best to keep him in line."
"Was that 'in line'?!" Malia demanded.
"No, I'm sorry." He repeated. Her jacket and shirt was covered in blood. He helped her slip off the jacket and then turned his back as she got her shirt over her head. The tank top she was wearing underneath was still clean, so she just tossed the jacket and over shirt aside.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Did you know that my wrist was broken during the car crash? I sat on the river bank, terrified and in immense pain, waiting for the ambulance to show up. I can handle pain, Stefan." She seemed slightly calmer now, though still angry.
"I'll talk to Elena about you." She added.
"Damon compelled you-."
"Not about you being a vampire. I'll talk to her about liking you again." With that said, Malia left the clinic.
Elena and Jenna were putting everything in Jeremy's room back in place. Jenna's drug search had come up fruitful and she had put it all aside to lecture Jeremy about later. Malia walked into the room.
"Elena? Can I talk to you?"
"Yeah, sure, I… Malia, what happened to your neck?" Jenna looked up at Elena's outburst and they both stared at the bandage on Malia's neck. Malia rolled her eyes and lied smoothly.
"I went into dad's old clinic to think, got cut by a broken piece of glass. I'll have you know I came very near to having my throat slit and bleeding out."
"Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine. Stefan helped me out."
"Stefan?" Elena echoed.
"He's not a bad guy. He's… he's nice. You should hang out with him. What I said before… It wasn't true. He was talking to me about you and I had thought he liked me and I got jealous so I got mean… and I'm sorry." Elena rushed over to hug Malia, surprising her.
"Are you sure he's okay?"
"He's a lot better than his brother." Malia mumbled.
"Then I'm going to go talk to him. If he didn't do anything… then I might have to apologize for how I've acted." Elena pulled away to look at her sister. Malia nodded in agreement.
"Go hang out with him." Elena hurried off.
"Malia Gilbert, jealous?" Jenna asked.
"It can happen to the best of us. Goodnight." Malia hurried upstairs to her attic bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Once she was on her bed, she collapsed on her pillows, already crying again.
