A/N: Hey guys! I'm SO SORRY for the late update (I feel like I begin with that a lot). I literally started this chapter the day I uploaded the last one. I just wanted to make sure I got everything perfect for you guys, and then school decided to like, assassinate me. So yeah. BUT- this is my last chapter! So that means I'm done and you don't have to sigh and wait for me anymore. That's good, right?

Big thanks to my friends Cher and Kristi who helped me get my thoughts organized for this chapter! You probably know them as Cher Sue and tukct81 here on . And if you don't, you should, because they're FLAWLESS!

Anyway. For the last time, here's The Power of Two.

Chapter 10

Rebekah's eyes were filled with tears of rage as she hovered over the doppelganger beneath her.

"What have you done?!" she shouted down at her, quickly throwing a glance back at her brother, who was screaming in agony from the white oak. "You bitch!"

"It won't kill him!" the injured doppelganger told the blonde atop her, trying to escape.

"I know that," Rebekah snapped.

"Good," the brunette smiled, kicking her off. "Then you can get the fuck off of me."

"You're not human anymore. Klaus can't use you for his hybrids, which means I'm free to kill you however I see fit," Rebekah sneered, her eyes narrowed as she looked the doppelganger up and down. Uncertainty flitted across her face. "You are Elena, aren't you?"

"Maybe I am," the girl shrugged, arms out helplessly. In a flash she had kicked the Original sister across the clearing, being sure to not lead her near trees. A true Petrova smirk danced on her lips while ruthlessness shone in her eyes. "Maybe I'm not."

The two girls were distracted by a shouted, strangled plea of help from Klaus; their heads whipped in his direction only to see the other doppelganger drive a stake through his chest. The brunette twisted it as it plunged deeper into his heart, her lips moving as if she was talking to him.

A synchronous cry of agony was let out by the brother and sister as the hybrid fell to the ground and burst into flames. The blonde snapped the neck of the injured doppelganger, not even bothering to watch as she crumpled to the floor as she blurred to the fire across the way.

The doppelganger nearest to the fallen Original looked down in awe for a second too long, as Rebekah had thrown her against a tree, tears streaming down her face.

"What the fuck did you just do?! How did you kill him- he can't die!" she sobbed angrily, her fangs bared in her emotional state.

"Loopholes," the brunette replied simply, kicking the blonde back. She tried to take off, only to be grabbed by the wrist by the female Original. She twisted around to face her, only to feel a sharp pain in her chest. She began gasping for air as she realized what was happening.

Desperately, the brunette tried to pull the tree branch out of her heart, but soon found it to be hopeless. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she looked around, hoping that a Salvatore would come running out of the bushes to her rescue, as Salvatores are wont to do. Surely Bonnie's shock as the scene in the clearing would have caused an interference with the spell, giving Damon and Stefan the perfect time to intervene. Tears rolled down her cheeks and sobs wracked her body, her hopes fading as she slowly felt herself falling to the ground beneath her, her body becoming more rigid by the second. She tried to maintain a bit of grace as she gently put her head to the ground, dirt mixing with tears to muddy her straight hair. Her final few cries resonated in anguish as she thought of her parents, who had gone through this torture of dying because of her; as she cried for her love cut short before it had really begun, and all she'd never experience; and as she realized that this is was it; this was dying.

A stunned Bonnie felt her heart crumple at the scene before her. She had just seen her best friend murdered. Possibly. It was all very confusing, and she felt numb as she let her spell fade. She remained where she was as her brown eyes watched Rebekah yank the limb from the deceased doppelganger and start towards the other one, who was still unconscious in a heap on the ground.

Before Damon and Stefan could regain their bearings and see what she prevented them from stopping, Bonnie found herself sprinting across the field, a white oak stake grasped tightly in her hand, turning her knuckles white. She knew it was up to her to save the other doppelganger. The doppelgangers were the only vampires able to use the white oak stakes without dying themselves- if the Salvatores tried, the white oak would kill them.

As she neared the blonde, she used the same spell she had just used on Stefan and Damon, knowing it would be greatly ineffective, but enough to distract the Original from staking the brunette. Sure enough, Rebekah's attention turned towards the witch, her eyes quickly finding the stake held in her right hand and smirking.

"You poor, pathetic, thing," she gasped through her tears. "Do you really think you can kill me on your own?" In the next movement, Rebekah was lifting her up by her throat, eyes glistening with the desire to avenge her fallen brother. Before Bonnie could get the chance to respond, she was knocked forwards on top of the blonde vampire.

"Bonnie, stake her!" she heard before regaining her composure. She lifted her head and saw Damon and Stefan holding the Original Sister down as she tried to fight them, both of their faces emotionless.

"If it's going to take you so long, I'll do it myself!" Damon snarled, reaching for the white oak stake in Bonnie's hand, only to grasp air as she moved it away.

"No. It has to be me, you two will die if you do it!" Bonnie told them.

"Then do it!" Stefan barked uncharacteristically.

A shaken Bonnie raised the stake before plunging it into the chest of the blonde vampire below her. Stefan tugged her arm and was able to get her off of the vampire before she burst into flames. The two sat there in shock, staring at the flames that danced before their eyes, Stefan's gaze finding his way towards where his brother stood, stoically, by the body of the fallen doppelganger. He got up from his spot next to the Bennett Witch and joined his brother, clasping his shoulder.

"Do you know-?" the elder Salvatore managed to ask.

Damon let out a shuddering breath as he shook his head, arms crossed and his fists clenched tightly. He looked down at the emaciated figure that could be Elena, and he felt his body go numb at the thought of her actually being gone. His eyes began to burn as he tried to stop the tears, but he was unable to. He fell to the ground beside her, head in his hands.

"I told her not to do this, Stefan!" he shouted as his brother kneeled beside him, tears silently falling down his face as well. His voice took on a softer, chanting tone. "You can't be dead. You can't be dead."

Stefan felt his heart fall for his brother and for himself. There was still a chance for Damon, there was a stirring doppelganger across the way that could be Elena. For Stefan…he lost either way. He had either just lost the girl he loved who loved his brother, or the girl who loved him, whom he was imagining spending eternity with.

"Guys! She's waking up!" Bonnie shouted from the post she had taken, next to the injured doppelganger. In a flash, Damon had his hand around Bonnie's throat.

He had her up in the air, her feet kicking around wildly as she searched for solid ground. Her brown eyes were wide with fear as she saw the hurt and unadulterated anger in his blue ones. Damon had left his numbness by the fallen girl; now all that he felt was rage. He had promised himself he would kill the witch if anything happened to Elena, and he was about to make good on that promise.

"Damon, stop!" his brother yelled as he knocked him down, Bonnie landing on the ground in a heap.

"Why, Stefan? Elena's dead because of her. If we could've gotten into the clearing fast enough, we could have saved her, but we couldn't. Because of her. Elena is dead because of her!" he shouted at his brother, a knife twisting deeper and deeper into his heart each time he said it.

"We don't know that!" Stefan shouted back, trying to talk some sense into his brother. It always amazed him how though he was the younger brother, he often had to step into the role of the eldest when it came to stressful situations like these. "We don't know that," he repeated calmly. The doppelganger's eyes shot open.

"Elena?" Bonnie choked out as she regained access to her lungs.

"Katherine?"

"Elena?"

As she gained consciousness of her surroundings, the doppelganger shot up, looking around wildly.

"Where's Rebekah?"

"She's dead, Bonnie staked her," the younger Salvatore informed her, his eyes searching for a clue as to which brunette was before him.

Damon's mind was a mess. Half of him wanted to flip the switch and kill Bonnie right here, right now. The other part of him was torn between daring to hope that Elena was alive before him and taking off his daylight ring as fast as he could. Those brown eyes looked up into his under that veil of lashes, and the part that dared to hope took over completely. Unfolding his arms, he kneeled down beside her, taking a place between his brother and Bonnie, the latter whom he was still fighting the urge to rip apart limb by limb.

"Bonnie? Why didn't Katherine do it?" she asked, looking around, trying to shake the pain of having her neck snapped.

All three of her companions inhaled sharply at her unknowing revelation.

Damon captured her in his arms in a flash, his face burying in her tangled hair as he dared to let tears escape from his cool blue eyes. He cradled her head with his hand while his other arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

"I thought I lost you," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, willing the tears to stop. She was alive. She was alive. She was alive. She was alive.

Elena was confused by this confession until her eyes landed on her emaciated body across the clearing. She let out a sob. They had beat Klaus, but they had still lost. Elena wasn't even fond of her counterpart, but she couldn't imagine dying after getting what she craved for so long. Katherine had finally gotten freedom for a whole minute, maybe, before it was taken away from her once more.

"We had it planned out perfectly," she choked, looking up at Bonnie and Stefan, as if imploring them to explain how everything went so wrong.

"Sometimes things don't always turn out the way you plan," Stefan spoke softly. She noticed that he didn't meet her eyes. He was looking at the ground, and she could tell he was wrestling with some kind of inner turmoil. Elena's eyes turned to Bonnie, who was regarding her skeptically.

"How do we know you're really Elena?" she asked.

Damon and Stefan's heads both snapped up to look at the brunette. Damon pulled back from his long embrace, brushing some of her brown hair out of her wide, fearful eyes.

"Bonnie, I've known you since we were two," she pleaded, looking up at the witch. "I promise I'm me!"

"You and Katherine were able to switch back and forth seamlessly," the Bennett witch replied. "I just don't want to get my hopes up that it's you, just to find out it's not."

Elena looked around at the pained faces around her, trying to figure out what she could do to convince them it was truly her. Bonnie's saddened expression, Damon's earnest brow furrow, and Stefan's unplaceable stare at the ground. Her eyes pulled back to Damon and she remembered.

"You love me," she stated, looking at him. Bonnie and Stefan remained silent as Damon's heart began to pound as he realized that this woman in his arms was in fact, Elena. He pulled her in for a fevered kiss, earning a shout of objection from Bonnie.

"Don't give in to your emotions, Damon! She could just be telling you what you want to hear. It's not like that was some big secret."

"You watch your back, Bennett," Damon threatened her. "Elena may be alive, but I still have a mind to snap you in half for that witchy stunt you pulled back there."

"Damon…" Stefan warned his brother.

"No one's snapping anyone in half," Elena declared. She turned to the two onlookers. "Damon told me he loved me several months ago and compelled me to forget it. He told me about it earlier this week," she explained. She looked down as she thought of the fallen doppelganger, "So he'd know if Katherine was pretending to be me or not."

"So you're really Elena?" Stefan asked cautiously. Curiously, she could see sadness reflected in his eyes.

"I'm really Elena. When Bonnie and I were freshmen she threw up in Mrs. Lockwood's "delicates" drawer at a party. And ran."

"She's Elena!" Bonnie shouted quickly, both in excitement and to drown out anything else Elena felt like sharing. She ran forward to embrace her friend, getting daggers glared at her by the raven haired vampire who held the doppelganger safely in his arms.

Stefan weakly smiled as he hugged the brunette before stepping back to let his brother shower her with alternating affections and reprimands. His eyes dared to look across the clearing to where Katherine lay rigid. Even in death, the younger Salvatore found, she was beautiful. He knelt down to caress her face, and as he did so, he sensed someone behind him.

"I'm sorry, Stefan," Bonnie whispered to the forlorn brother. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I want to give her a proper grave. A final resting place. She ran so much…"

The witch nodded silently, putting a comforting arm around Stefan.

A few yards away in the clearing, Damon and Elena sat, wrapped in each other's arms, the events of the day crashing into them.

"We weren't expecting her, Damon. We didn't plan for it," Elena repeated.

"If you hadn't had Bennett use her magic on us we could have helped," Damon told her, trying not to be too angry with the shaken doppelganger.

"But you would have done something stupid! You could have died!"

"Let's not talk about doing stupid things, Elena. You almost died! And Katherine…when I thought that you…" Damon's anger quickly dissolved as he felt his stomach give out once more. That hopelessness…

"Hey. I'm here," Elena said softly, guiding his eyes to hers. "I'm right here."

Damon closed the gap between them, his lips gently pressing on hers as she closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears of exhaustion and fear from finally flowing free. She kissed back with urgency, needing to make sure that he was here and that she was here and that they were alive and together, never having to worry about Klaus ever again.

Five figures sat in the clearing behind the Salvatore boarding house as they stared at the casket next to a pile of freshly dug earth. It had been a short service. There hadn't been an abundance of nice things to say, though everyone was able to think of at least one.

Damon and Elena had quickly put together the pieces the day before in the clearing, causing Elena's floodgates to finally break as she cried for all of the day's events along with her guilt over Katherine's death. When the younger Salvatore had told them his idea for a burial, they couldn't say no.

Caroline, Damon, Elena, Bonnie, and finally, Stefan had one at a time gone up and said something nice about Katherine. Stefan himself knew that this was a stretch, and was pleasantly surprised when everyone was able to pull through.

Caroline thanked Katherine for turning her into a vampire, which, after the first few weeks, she considered a major improvement on who she was as a person. Damon credited her for leading him to Elena. Bonnie thanked her for coming forward with a way to kill Klaus, ensuring her friends no more harm.

Elena took more time in her goodbye. She thanked Katherine for Damon, for Stefan, and for what she had taught her in the week of training before apologizing for her death, several times, and wishing she could change it somehow. She told the deceased doppelganger how she had spent the last year or so trying to set herself apart from her, and only just realized that they were two sides to the same coin. Orphaned at the brink of adulthood, marked by an ancient curse, doomed to love the same pair of brothers. It was how they each handled the situations in their lives that differed, and Elena apologized for the roughness that had been Katherine's life, though it had been no fault of Elena's. She wished her happiness on the other side and took her place by Damon, content with what she had said.

Stefan took his place next to the coffin and looked at his closest friends, beginning to have second thoughts about what he was about to tell them.

"First of all, I'd like to thank Katherine for giving me the opportunity to spend an eternity with my brother," Stefan started, looking down. "I'd also like to thank her for opening my eyes to what this world has to offer." He took a breath before looking up. "Which is why I'm leaving."

There was a beat of silence from his companions before he heard his brother.

"What?"

"Katherine and I were supposed to travel the world after Klaus was killed," Stefan told them, his heart offering a hollow thump as he thought of Katherine. "I feel like I owe her that. Plus, I think it'd be good for me to get away from Mystic Falls for a while. These last few months have put a strain on every aspect of my life, and I just feel like now's the time to travel; to let things settle before I come back."

The four beings before him stared, dumbfounded.

"I'll keep in touch," he offered, shrugging a bit at their silence. When no one said anything, he turned to Katherine's coffin, placing a hand on its smoothed wood. "I'm so sorry, Katherine," he whispered. "But I'm going for both of us." And with that, he took a seat next to his brother as Bonnie stood up and lowered the casket into the ground.

After the dirt was pushed on top of the casket, Stefan walked over to the mound, placing a rose by the headstone.

KATERINA PETROVA
KATHERINE PIERCE

May the soul that wanders find peace at last.

A hand clasped on his shoulder, causing him to start.

"You're really leaving, brother?" Damon asked, his eyes concerned.

"I just need some time," he explained. "So much has happened since the whole Klaus thing started, and I really just need to get away from it all; give you and Elena some space."

"Elena and I are fine with you here," Damon told him, hesitant for his baby brother to leave so soon after a major shakeup in their lives. The younger Salvatore smiled.

"I'll keep in touch, Damon," he reassured. "I'll let you and Elena have the boardinghouse to yourselves during your honeymoon phase. I'll be back before you know it. I'd like to travel one time where I'm not compelled by myself or others to rip people apart. It puts a damper on the sightseeing," Stefan quipped.

"If you need anything, call us," Elena insisted, appearing beside the brothers as she wrapped her ex-boyfriend into a hug.

"You can't hog him, you guys. He's leaving and we want to say goodbye too!" Caroline exclaimed, dragging Stefan towards where she and Bonnie were standing. Elena laughed and looked up at the Salvatore next to her, who was still staring at his brother, his blue eyes swimming with worry.

"Hey," she called to him, trying to snap him out of his reverie. He looked down at her, smiling softly as she reassured him that Stefan would be okay. "It's not the first time you've been separated," she pointed out. "And it won't be the last. You're on much better terms this time, too!"

"And I have you here all to myself in the meantime," he growled, wrapping an arm around her waist and bringing her flat against him. "And what good timing too. It seems like I just lost my roommate."

Elena laughed before being silenced with a kiss. Damon pulled back and looked down upon her.

"Just to be clear, you're never following through with any of your plans ever again."

"We'll see about that," she grinned, pulling him down for another kiss, happy that his temperament was back to his usual self, his worry for his brother forgotten for now. Damon chuckled against her lips.

"I love you," he muttered against her mouth as he smiled. She laced her arms around his neck and her lips formed a smile to match his.

"I love you, too, Damon."

Fun fact: This battle/the death was the first idea for this story.

Well, there you go! I really hope you enjoyed it! Please leave me a review and tell me what you thought. If you've never reviewed before, review and tell me what you think! I actually was going to post Katherine's last words, but I think they'd be a nice incentive for reviewing, wouldn't you? ;)

I just want to thank everyone who's stuck with this until the end, whether they started here and went back to read Shared Reparation or if they started from the very first chapter of SR. Writing a sequel isn't easy and I'd like to apologize for all of the breaks this story had between chapters. I love every last one of you and I hope to be back with other stories in the future.

Well...You know what to do!