Disclaimer: I don't own anything. If I did, sure as hell Delena wouldn't be just FanFic anymore...

A/N: Only 4 weeks left! Yay! I really try hard not to spoil myself, sadly it doesn't work...Have you seen the pictures? Ugh, still 28 days...

Oh, thanks so much for your kind reviews!

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Chapter 7

I should go

Before my will gets any weaker

And my eyes begin to linger

Longer than they should

I should go

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I Should Go by Levi Kreis

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Her heart skipped a beat. She wrapped her free arm around his neck and kissed him back.

And he couldn't believe it. He was kissing Elena, and she was kissing him back! Prickling heat washed through his veins, and he shivered.

The kiss was both passionate and incredibly tender at the same time. And it felt so right. Even if she knew that it was wrong. How could something wrong feel so damn right, though? And how could something that felt so right actually be wrong?

Elena didn't want to think about that, about anything. She only wanted to get lost in these overwhelming sensations. She felt Damon's tensed body trembling; she felt his unbelievably smooth lips on hers; she felt his hand on her back, on her face, on her head, tangled in her hair – how could those hands, that could (and did) easily break necks and rip hearts out, be so tender?

She pulled him a little closer, and a soft moan escaped her throat. And then something changed. She felt Damon's body stiffen slightly. She opened her eyes and saw something in his face that hasn't anything to do with what she was feeling…regret? He frowned and reluctantly pulled away, eyes still closed, as if he tried to hold on to something at least in his mind.

"Damon?" she asked tentatively. He opened his eyes, and what she saw in there couldn't be misunderstood. It was raw pain.

"Elena" his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. He gazed at her, eyes lingering on her lips, closing briefly, wandering to hers, locking with them. Taking a deep, still shuddering breath, his expression became determined.

"Elena, we shouldn't have done this."

She gaped at him, completely unsettled. "What?"

"It's not what you want." Pulling his free hand away from her head, he paused for a second to caress her cheek; then he let his arm slump down beside him. "Look, I know this place is really creepy; scary things have happened, and it makes us doing things you…we don't really want to do. Crap, what was he talking about? He totally wanted to do that, and much more...Once we're out of here we hopefully know of a way to find Stefan. It'll always gonna be Stefan...And maybe we find a way to get rid of Klaus, too. We will bring my little brother back to his bunny diet, and everything will go back to normal again. You…we don't want to deal with guilt then. So let's just forget about this How could he ever forget about this? He never would...and go on to see where this corridor will lead us, okay?"

Elena stared at him in utter shock. He didn't want that? No, she didn't believe it for a second. They shouldn't have done that? Check. Guilt? Double check. Yet…it had felt so right! Her body had reacted in a way it never had with Stefan. She loved Stefan, she really did. But what the hell was it she was feeling for Damon? It was different, but was it less?

But he had a point. Once they had Stefan back, she needed to be there for him. If everything Damon had told her about Stefan and his blood lust was right, and she didn't doubt it, he would need her help far more than the last time. She couldn't even think about leaving him. Crap, did she? Think about leaving Stefan? For Damon? Ugh, it was futile. Eventually she managed to answer him: "Yeah."

At that, she saw a hint of disappointment in his eyes for a split second; then his wall went up. He straightened, gave her hand a squeeze and said: "Okay, let's go."

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It was easier to go forward than before, now that they had a path they could follow. The corridor didn't go straight ahead, but it was not comparable to the wounding path leading over the … nothing. It felt more as if they walked along streets in a city, a light curve here and there, sometimes going around a corner. But it always was a definite way that clearly was meant to lead to a goal, what ever it was.

And all of a sudden, they were standing right in front of it.

From one step to the other, the creatures surrounding them were popped away, as if Damon and Elena had passed an invisible wall leaving the spirits behind it, their whispering merely perceptible hanging in the air like the noise of an event happening miles away.

They stood still, gaping at what was obviously meant to be their target.

Three large mirrors. No frame. Not even any kind of wall they were hanging on. Just the mirrors, reflecting Damon and Elena, hand in hand, staring at themselves.

"What kind of crap is that?" Damon asked baffled.

"Huh" Elena was rendered speechless.

When they tentatively stepped up to the mirrors they heard it.

The whispering of the spirits had been replaced by other noises. Much worse noises. Blood curdling noises. It sounded as if hundreds of people were screaming in absolute agony.

"What the hell…" Damon muttered, sparing a side glance at Elena. With wide eyes, her face was all fear.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Her voice was shaky.

"Huh." It was Damon's turn to be speechless.

"Maybe we should try to have a look at it from the backside?" he suggested after a while.

With an anxious face Elena nodded hesitantly. Carefully they approached the mirrors, and the closer they came, the louder the screaming became. They surrounded the mirrors and saw – nothing. There was no backside. They went back to where they had seen them last and looked at the mirrors again, closer this time. The noises had increased to a level they had to shout over now to understand each other.

"Should I try to touch it?" Elena asked. As a response Damon pulled her closer to the mirrors, lifted his free hand up to the one they were standing now in front of and – watched his hand vanishing trough what he had thought was the mirrors surface. He hastily pulled it back and was relieved when it reappeared.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

Elena glanced at him and couldn't help but giggle when she saw his appalled looking face.

"You okay? Did it hurt?" she asked; when he shook his head, she lifted her own free hand and tried it herself. As well as it had happened to Damon's hand, hers vanished through the non-existent surface. She pulled it back, pushed through and pulled back once again. Apart from what was visible, nothing else happened to her hand. It felt as if there was no mirror at all.

"I think we should go in there" she suggested.

"What?" His brows shot up.

Elena was lost in thoughts. She was certain that they needed to go through one of the mirrors. Which one was the one to be chosen? Assessing the scary screaming, she had the strange feeling, that the wrong choice could be fatal. But how could she even know which was the right one? She examined the three mirrors thoroughly. They apparently all show the same thing, which was only logical, considering the fact that they were mirrors. Mirrors were supposed to reflect what was in front of them, weren't they? But this world they currently were in had nothing to do with logic. There had to be something else, any sort of a hint.

And then she saw it. Excitedly she went from one mirror to the next and to the third, Damon in tow begrudgingly following her. He really didn't like the idea of stepping into one of the mirrors. In a way it seemed to be a witchy thing, and he hated witches…But seeing Elena's determined expression, he sighed deeply; he had no chance, and he knew it; and besides, probably she was right.

"This one" She stated, pointing on the left mirror.

"Why?" Damon asked incredulously. "How do you know? It spoke to you?"

"In a way…" Elena smiled. She glanced at Damon and saw …fear?... really?...in his eyes. He tried to hide it, but he knew it was futile; Elena used to look right through his walls. However she did it…

Elena squeezed his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. "Look at our faces and our posture" she said, obviously meant as an explanation for her decision. But Damon didn't see any difference between the reflections.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't see it?" She couldn't believe it. He was so sensitive, and he always knew exactly what she was thinking and how she was feeling, only by a look into her face. How could he not see that?

"Look at this one" she explained, "we both are looking… bored; not concerned about what is going on. We're holding the other's hand, but it could as well be a log. This one shows us…annoyed, I think. Same with the hands. And in both mirrors, we are more distant to each other than in the third one. Look, there are at least five inches between us. But in there" she pointed to the left mirror, "our arms … you see? No distance between them. And our faces…" she trailed of. Our faces show how we're really feeling, they show concern, worry, and…something else…"This is us" she said.

Damon raised a brow. "Stupid me. I thought it's all us. Now you've mentioned it, I can see this one's Blondie and her pet, and there's the witch and…" Elena cut him off with an impatient waving of her free hand.

"It's this one. I know it."

Damon didn't see the slightest difference between the three reflections, nothing of what she had spoken of was visible to his eyes. She grabbed his free hand and locked their gazes.

"Damon, do you trust me?"

He tossed a hesitant glance toward the mirror she had chosen and looked back into her brown eyes. You're not capable of trust!

"Yes, Elena, I do."

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A lazy calmness lay over the group; for more than an hour nothing had happened to the seemingly lifeless lying bodies in the center of the pentagram. They had sent Vicky to look for them; when she came back, she told Jeremy that they were fine and going on again. Everyone was fighting more or less against sleep, when suddenly a buzzing interrupted the silence. Five heads jerked up and turned to where the sound was coming from; yet they couldn't see the source.

"That's Damon's cell" Ric explained. Bonnie threw a brief glance at Damon, relieved that the buzzing obviously was coming from another direction somewhere in the parlor; luckily she didn't have to grab it out of his trouser pocket. She looked up and met Ric's gaze; she shrugged and he mimicked her movement; they couldn't reach it.

Ten minutes later everyone threatened to fall into numbness again, when the door bell rang. Like before, five heads jerked up and turned to the front door.

"Who's there?" With Damon and Elena out of order, Ric felt as the one being most in charge for the boarding house; if the amount of consumed booze in here over the months was in any way significant, he surely was.

They heard the door being opened tentatively and a voice calling reluctantly. "Damon? Are you here?"

"Mom! Come in! "Caroline shouted without thinking. Liz came in, glancing cautiously at the weird picture her eyes caught. When she discovered the unmoving bodies in the middle of the pentagram she cursed. "What the hell… Caroline, what's going on here?" she added sharply, tossing her daughter a demanding look.

"Oh, uh…about that…" Caroline sighed; one more thing to explain to her mother…

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Bonnie had confidently explained all of importance. Sheriff Forbes, being the Sheriff, was a good listener. Focusing on the main facts, she didn't question given circumstances; she was highly interested in the cause for sending a 17 year old girl without any supernatural skills into a hostile world, yet she didn't ask. And what was even more, she didn't question the whole act of sending anyone at all into a foreign world; she had the strong feeling, that these guys, regardless their age, were absolutely capable on handling things like that.

When Bonnie was done, Liz nodded, rose from the armchair she had taken a seat on and turned to leave the house. Caroline held her back. "Mom, why did you come over?"

Liz turned toward the pentagram; she eyed Damon lying on the floor, protectively enveloping Elena's slender figure with one arm, holding her hand in his other hand, and her eyes softened. Yes, that man had betrayed her, had obtained her confidence surreptitiously; but here and now, that picture in sight, she felt that she trusted him, and her last doubts faded away.

"I needed to talk to Damon; bad time for it, as it seems…"

"Tell us instead, mom"

Liz shook her head renunciatively. "Council business"

"Seriously?" Caroline incredulously glared at her. "Still your stupid little daughter who has to keep her mouth shut when the grownups are talking, mom?" she asked defiantly.

When Ric saw anger rising up in the Sheriff's eyes, he chimed in. "Everything concerning the council concerns us probably even more than the council; you know that by now, Sheriff. We know more about all that stuff than anyone in Mystic Falls. We're dealing with it for months now. And by the way, everything you would have told Damon, he would've filled us in anyway."

Considering what he had said, Liz nodded and paced back to her seat. "Since the day of that…sacrifice, there were several bodies found within a radius of about 600 miles. All of them attacked by an animal…The police succeeded to keep it mostly out of the media, because they have been … slaughtered. Torn apart by…due to the marks, obviously wolves were involved." Her eyes flickered to Tyler, who shifted in unease. "During the first days, the tracks led away from Mystic Falls; but now… now they seem to turn around and come back…"

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They went over to the mirror and positioned themselves in front of it. The screaming was unnerving, and it seemed to escape from the mirrors. Would it be even worse on the other side? Would they have to face the source of it, the cruel cause for it?

"Okay. Let's get it over with" Damon said. If they had to do it, then he preferred to do it fast. Both took a deep breath, glanced at each other, squeezed the other's hand and stepped inside.

Nothing happened to them, it was a step like every other step except the fact that once again the world was a completely different one.

The very first thing they noticed was that the blood curdling screaming abruptly had stopped. At first the silence was deafening. However, when their ears were beginning to get used to it again, they realized, that it wasn't silent at all. The sound they heard now was barely discernible, but it was there; a quiet buzzing, like electricity whirring through the air.

The environment looked much friendlier than before; the gloom had been replaced by a bright shimmery light that seemed to have no source. The ground, although still stony, looked somewhat smoother, as if it was coated by a thin layer of cotton wool. Though, like before, there was no horizon; where should be one, the ground seemed to disappear in foggy air.

Cautiously observing their surroundings, Elena and Damon found no living beings, or dead for that matter, in it; there was no movement except their own.

"This is better." Damon looked relieved.

"Much better" Elena confirmed. "Where do we go?"

Damon shrugged. "Forward." And so they did.

While they were walking, they slowly approached the fog. The closer they came, the more it looked like a wall consisting of a blurry fog, like clouds and yet different; when they looked at it, their eyes couldn't quite focus any point to catch a clear vision, akin to driving through a snow flurry.

Once they arrived at the foggy wall they noticed that it indeed was kind of a cloud hovering over the ground; it extended to both sides as far as they could see. Damon was quite certain that they would have to pass through. If he hadn't liked the idea of stepping into the mirror, the thought of passing this cloud crept the hell out of him. It evaporated something …evil.

"You think we…" Elena's tiny voice trailed off; he could hear that she sensed it too.

"Uh…as much as I don't like it…I think so."

Elena nodded miserable. "Ugh, I'm getting tired of all of this" she muttered. Damon glanced at her sympathetically; she looked exhausted. He lifted their glued hands behind her back to pull her against him, then placed them between their chests like he had done earlier and wrapped his free arm around her. Elena leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, feeling relieved in the safeness and comfort he was giving her with his embrace.

"I know. I'm sorry" he murmured into her hair.

Frowning she asked: "For what? You've done nothing wrong."

He let out an unhappy chuckle. "I've done nothing but wrong, Elena."

She sighed. "That's where you're wrong, you know that. You didn't tell him to go to Klaus to get you the cure. You didn't even know he did it. Don't crucify yourself. It was his decision, and he had his reasons. And you know what? I'm glad he did it, because if he hadn't done it, you were not here embracing me right now." And it feels much too good to have missed it…

"He would probably embrace you out there in the sunshine…"

Impatiently she cut him off. "Yeah, over your grave. Shut up, Damon. He's alive at least. You wouldn't be." They fell silent for a while, relishing the embrace they were sharing. Her words couldn't take away the guilt he felt toward his brother; but no one could blame him that they made him happier…

She braced herself, and then she pulled away and said with a deep sigh: "Let's face it." She took a step toward the blurry fog to enter it, but Damon held her back. "Wait" he said. And like earlier at the mirror, he raised his free hand and put it reluctantly into the fog. He held it in there for some seconds, until he suddenly hissed and jerked it back.

"What kind of a sick joke is that?" he yelled. Elena jumped.

"What? What is it Damon?"

"We're screwed."

"What? Why? Tell me!"

"That bloody damn fog feels like going into the sunlight without a ring! And without clothes at that, I might add." Scowling he tucked up his sleeve, examined his hand, showing Elena the sun burnt looking skin even at his arm where the sleeve had been; it had already started to heal, but it still looked … hurting.

"Oh my God." Elena's paling face looked desperate. "Maybe we should try to find a way around?"

"There won't be a way around! I'm quite sure that the damn chief witch who's playing her stupid games with us wants us to pass through!" he ranted.

Elena watched him surprised. "You think that witches are responsible for all of that?"

"Everything in here screams 'witch' to me" he growled. "Think about it, Elena. All that crap of balance of nature – who is responsible for maintaining the balance of nature? Right, the witches. And who brought us our dear visitors Anna and Vicky back, who sent us into that funny witchy game show? Witches. And all that bullshit happening to us smells like witchy woo woo crap to me. Almost as if the bitches wanna test us."

Tilting her head, Elena contemplated what he had said. She had to admit that it sounded at least possible. Suddenly a thought occurred to her mind. Burning in the sun was a vampire thing. Maybe it wouldn't happen to her? She put her free hand into the fog before Damon could react and pulled it back almost instantly. Her skin burned. In here, it wasn't just vampire related.

"What do we do now?"

Damon shrugged. "Pass through. We have no other choice." He shifted, halfway turning his back to her. "Hop on; the piggy back express is leaving in ten seconds"

"Wait, what?" Elena asked incredulous.

He turned back to look at her again, raising an eyebrow. "What do you think we should do? You want to walk through on your own? Good luck. You'll be burnt within a minute. Vamp speed is the only real chance we have."

She stared at him. "But…we have no idea how far this fog extends…"

"No" he shrugged, "let's just hope I'm fast enough to reach the other side before we end up as a pile of something that looks like someone had emptied his oversized ashtray. If there is another side… Oh, don't look at me like that; I'm really fast, you know?" He lifted her chin with his finger and locked their gazes. "Until now, nothing in here was impossible to solve for us. Why should it be different now? Hey, we're a great team! Now it's my turn again. We'll make it."

Elena nodded reluctantly.

After taking Damon's other hand she managed to cling to his back. She wrapped her arms around his chest and couldn't help but relishing the feeling to be so close to him; she flushed and was glad that he couldn't see it.

"Hold on tight, and close your eyes. Ready?" he asked.

"Go ahead"