The Vampire Diaries—Chapter 10
Elena sat on the motel bed. Early dawn light bled in through the window. She stood and sat beside the window, staring out where Damon had left, feeling a fog come over her eyes. She blinked rapidly, shaking her head.
"Elena," Meredith called out to her. Elena turned to see Meredith holding a tray out to her with waffles and syrup and jam. "I managed to sneak some food up here. I got a few nasty looks, but I told them you were sick in bed."
"It's really good," Bonnie affirmed around a bite of toast in her mouth.
Elena frowned. "Sorry Mer, I'm not very hungry."
Meredith set the tray down on the bed and sat beside Elena on the window frame. "You know, he'll be fine."
Elena nodded, but she still frowned. "You still worry about Alaric though, don't you?"
Meredith smiled. She really looked older than her years—and mature enough to be thirty years old. Alaric could technically date her, now that she was eighteen. Alaric went out often on trips to go do research in foreign countries."Sometimes," she admitted. "I think you'll have more comfort to know that Damon's a little more supernatural than Alaric."
Elena smiled, weakly. "Give me those waffles, then."
"That's my girl," Meredith smiled and stood to take the waffles from the bed and give them to Elena. She cut into one and tasted it, closing her eyes. It was so warm and sweet, she thought. Her mouth watered for more; she cut each piece with relish.
Bonnie sat on the bed. "So what do we do, now?"
Meredith fell silent, and Elena considered. "I don't know," she said. "Just wait for Damon to come back."
"He insinuated that he'd be gone for several days, though," Meredith pointed out. "I'd feel a little useless just sitting here, doing nothing."
"What can we do?" Elena asked, and bit into another waffle.
"What even happened last night?" Bonnie asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw Meredith's eyebrows raise in silent question to her best friend. Even Meredith was curious, though Elena knew her friend wouldn't push the question.
"I saw… Stefan," she said, her cheeks flushing.
"Do you think he was trying to contact you?" Bonnie asked.
"No, I don't think it was actually him," she said, the finality of the situation seeming to hit her, hard.
"It would be hard to do that in a comatose state," Meredith pointed out.
"And Stefan wouldn't try to influence your dreams to hurt you," Bonnie said. "It doesn't seem like something he would do."
Elena stood, and walked over to her suitcase. Unzipping it, she began to dig through blouses and pairs of jeans, frowning.
"Elena?"
She didn't answer, but just kept digging.
Finally, Elena's hands curled around the one thing Stefan had given her.
The vervain pendant. Her protection against Compulsion from vampires.
Elena pushed her hair back to clasp the chain. Her fingers shook—until Meredith walked over and took the clasps away from Elena's fingers. Elena waited patiently for Meredith to clasp the two ends together.
"You stopped wearing it," Meredith said, with a hint of surprise in her voice. "I never asked why, but I thought—"
"It was Stefan's gift to me," Elena replied, almost blandly. She touched the necklace—it felt cold, but already started to warm up against her skin. "It was painful to even look at for so long, let alone wear it, but—I just had the feeling that I should pack it. I guess I was right. And…"
Elena dug through the suitcase again, holding up two more heart shaped lockets with small black letters etched into the gray metal at the top. "Meredith" on one, "Bonnie" etched on the other. Small diamond-shaped gems outlined the edges, the sides of which reflected the early morning light.
"I sealed vervain in them," Elena explained. "I meant to give them to you a long time ago, but since Stefan died—" she flinched to even say it. "Since I thought he died, anything concerning vampires in Mystic Falls just died off. I didn't think it was important. But—" She extended the heart shaped pendants to her two best friends. "Wear them for me?"
Bonnie hugged her best friend. "Of course we'll wear them," she said.
Meredith took hers, and opened the pendant carefully, smiling. "You even put pictures in them."
Elena smiled and nodded. Meredith closed the locket with the vervain, gratefully.
"Thanks, Elena," she told her friend.
Damon stared at Stefan, raising an eyebrow. "Well, this is an unexpected surprise." Inside, his blood began to boil. He shook his head, and turned off the emotions, and just like that, Damon Salvatore's eyes turned raven black again.
"What are you playing at?" Stefan asked.
"Trying to help you," Damon replied. "Though there doesn't seem to be much I can do there. What happened, Stefan? Did you just run away?"
Damon thought he saw something in Stefan's eyes flicker—a hesitation. His Power seemed… different, somehow. Damon shot out a blast of Power towards his brother, who narrowed his eyes. Stefan's own Power pushed back at Damon's, but that was enough for him to see more clearly the taint on his Power.
This was Stefan's body, but not Stefan, Damon knew.
"Get out," Stefan growled. And never come back."
"And what of Elena?" Damon asked.
"What of her?"
"Are you just going to leave her alone?"
Another flicker in his eyes. "Just go. Tell her I'm dead."
"And why should I do that?"
Stefan shifted on his branch. "If you follow me, I will kill you."
If Damon blinked, he would have missed Stefan's figure turning into a dove and flying away. Away from him.