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"Stefan?" Elena asked, shocked. His face held the swollen veins of the transformation into a monster, and he didn't relax when he saw her. In fact, he appeared to be set more on edge by her presence.

Because the smell of her blood was everywhere from the brewing potion.

Faster than Elena could see, Stefan was only half as far away as he had been a moment earlier, and was being firmly restrained by Aiana. His attempts at movement didn't even shake her arms. The oldest vampire gestured with her head toward Katherine, who flashed over and knocked Stefan unconscious with a single blow to the back of his head.

"No!" Elena exclaimed, "don't hurt him!"

"If I remember right, Elena, Stefan attacking you and leaving are the reasons that Damon is – was protecting you. I don't think he'll much care if we manhandle Stefan a bit." Katherine tossed Stefan to one side and brushed her hands off.

"Now, since we were so rudely interrupted." Aiana said, and picked up the goblet from where she'd set it prior to keeping Stefan from rushing forward toward Elena.

"Wait," Katherine held up a hand, "You don't know these brothers. We're due for another miraculous entry any time now."

A few minutes later, Elena began to hear the sounds of someone descending the stairs, and was greeted by the sight of Damon, Bonnie, and Caroline.

Damon took one look at her and got a look of rage on his face.

"Don't!" Elena tried to warn, but he had already moved to attempt to rescue Elena. It was Katherine who intercepted him this time, throwing him down onto the floor on his back.

"You're the youngest vampire here, Damon. Well, aside from Blondie." Katherine said sweetly before a sharp crack broke the air and three of Damon's fingers were bent backwards, almost touching the back of his hand. As soon as Katherine released his wrist, his bones began knitting back together and within a few seconds his hand looked normal again, but he took a moment to flex them, checking.

"Try anything again and it's your spine next. That takes a hell of a lot longer to heal than just a couple of finger bones. And meanwhile, you're paralyzed. So sit still and shut up." Katherine placed him with his back to Elena, to afford her some amount of decency.

Stefan was already starting to come to, having been knocked out by only a blow to the head, not a stake or by vervain, and Katherine latched her hand around his wrist to keep him from going anywhere. He struggled against her for a moment, but then she whispered something into his ear and he stopped moving, his expression going from anger to something unreadable, even for Damon.

He wanted to break Elena out of the restraints, but in the look he'd gotten at them while Katherine was breaking his hand, he could tell that there was no way he would have the strength to either break the shackles or shear them away from the table, so he was forced to sit, blind to everything that was going on except for Katherine's attempts to sway Stefan. It turned his stomach in 1864 and it still did, but for different reasons. He no longer reviled the whispers because of jealousy, but out of disgust. Katherine's heart was blacker than midnight with no stars, and, as vile as he had been before Elena, he had never stooped to Katherine's level of treachery, deceit and debauchery. Alright, maybe debauchery, he allowed himself.

"Stop, please, don't do this!" Elena exclaimed as Aiana approached again and Bonnie moved to go forward, but Raechelle raised her hands and threw Bonnie back against the wall by the door, the young witch collapsing in a heap at Caroline's feet.

"Bonnie!" Caroline yelled and dropped to her friend's side, checking to make sure she was alright.

For the first time in a long time, Damon felt utterly helpless, able only to listen to Elena's cries, or risk not being able to help her once everything was said and done because of paralysis. Her cries became muffled, and he could hear the liquid being poured from the goblet, splashing over Elena's tongue, and the gurgling as she was forced to swallow it.

The crack he heard next was unmistakable. He had heard it several times, having administered a similar fate to countless humans over the decades of his undeath. His chest tightened and he felt dizzy, even though he didn't need the air. His throat choked closed and he would swear that he heard his heart breaking in the same sound as the breaking of Elena's neck.

"It is done." Aiana said, tossing the goblet to the floor with a clatter, breaking the tangible silence that fell over the room, as Katherine was the only one not horrified. Then a moment later, a piercing scream cut the air, and Damon saw Caroline fall back onto the floor and slide backwards, her mouth gaping open, but she was not the one screaming. And Bonnie was still out cold. He turned his head in Elena's direction and even though her head was bent up and backwards at an angle impossible without the breaking, the blood curdling shriek was emanating from her.

"Katherine, what have you-?" Damon paused his question as he looked around the area where Katherine and Stefan had been only a moment earlier and found it to be empty. He looked around the rest of the loft and saw a pair of curtains fluttering out into the street from a window across the large room.

"Where did she go?" Damon demanded of Aiana, ignoring momentarily, Elena's repeated screams

"Katherine comes and goes more freely than the wind. I have no idea where she intends to go next, or why she took your brother with her."

"Oh, I think I know why she took him." Damon said and looked down at Elena, the situation too dire for even him to be stirred by her nakedness and thought pityingly

"She's never stopped trying to get him to be hers. Not since 1864."


"Stop thrashing Stefan, I can give you what you want." Katherine whispered into his ear after clamping her hand down on him with the strength of a vice. She was four hundred years older and stronger, and he knew it. Obediently he stopped and listened to what she had to say

"I can tell you've gone off the rails again, I know you attacked Elena. I know you're reverting back to a ripper. And I want to take you with me." She pressed something cylindrical into his hand that was slightly warm. He looked down to see the deep red of blood inside the glass tube.

"You've been too good for too long, Stefan. Come be bad with me. No rules, no limits, just the world."

The part of Stefan that left Mystic Falls to try and better himself before returning to Elena was railing against Katherine's words, telling him to remain strong, to cast the vial away, and stay on his path.

But the darker part of him, the primal animal that had been woken when he had first been turned into a vampire in 1864, the part that shut off his humanity, urged him forward. His bloodlust was raging and he unstoppered the vial with hardly a second thought, draining the contents in an instant. It was Elena's blood, and fresh too.

"When Aiana kills Elena, escape with me."

He nodded, and as soon as they heard the crack, they were off like marathon runners, out through the window and leaping over buildings and roads like it was their own personal obstacle course. A portion of Stefan registered that Elena had just been killed, and that he should feel bad, but that part was being increasingly buried by his demon. The Ripper.

Yes, I am intending this story to be Damon/Elena and Stefan/Katherine. You get a double update today: this and the third chapter of "Inevitable"