Author's Note: I just watched the new TVD episode. I don't know about you guys, but at the risk of sounding cocky, I'm kind of happy with how this story turned out lmao. Please review and enjoy!
I don't own The Vampire Diaries.
Katherine scoffed, thinking Damon was just messing with her. But he wasn't: his face was grave and taut. Her teeth grazed over her lower lip, stalling as much time as possible – just enough until she could figure out how to explain what had happened. There was no point lying. The twins were going to say, sooner or later, that they've been seeing and playing with their uncle. She was cornered from all sides and there was no easy way out.
"Don't be ridiculous, Damon. I'm one of a kind." She quipped, confronting his daunting look.
He stared into her bottomless hues, searching for a trace of deception. When he couldn't find any, he let go of her neck gradually without completely abandoning wariness.
"How do you explain your hocus pocus in there? Did Stefan suck dry Tinker Bell before giving you his blood?"
She clamped her teeth together, reluctact to answer. He wasn't going to take kindly what she was about to say. She shook her head weakly, avoiding his prying eyes.
"Katherine." He urged scoldingly, his voice raising an octave. "What the hell happened in there?"
She sighed exasperatedly, mentally preparing herself for Damon's upcoming tantrum.
"When I died, I saw someone. Someone who was both a vampire and a witch and…"
"Oh no." he interrupted abruptly, his features depicting denial. "Don't you dare tell me that out of all the lunatic, demented Siphoner freaks you made a deal with Kai-Bonkers Parker."
All the older Salvatore needed to do to find out the answer was to scan her impassible face and her innocent sideways look. His lips quivered for a moment and his fists tightened until his knuckles turned white; he was certainly striving to regain his composure and refrain from detrimential actions.
"What did he want in return for his magic?" he asked glumly.
She crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly with a baleful glare. Damon stopped struggling against his impulse and grabbed her shoulders, forcing herself to look at him directly. His cerulean eyes were scathing.
"To talk to the twins." She finally spluttered through gritted teeth. "He has some kind of unfinished business apparently. Killing Enzo must have been one of them."
Damon released his grip on her shoulders and swerved abruptly, kicking the trunk of a sapling from a few yards away. It tore from the ground and fell, its roots dangling. He hesitated for a second and then turned back to her, moving closer.
"Come on. We're going back to the mansion."
"I'm not going anywhere." She declared, her delicate features creasing into a frown. Her pearl drop earrings diffused soft gleams in the faint sunlight as she shook her head resolutely. "When they'll find out what I've done they're going to skin me alive."
"Either them or me." He hinted at the threat with a subtle, vicious grimace. "Maybe next time you'll think again before screwing us over."
She gave a harsh derisive laugh, in disharmony with her angelic countenance.
"You think I'm afraid of what your joke of a gang will do to me? Stefan's on my side. Matty blue blue might have a lot of terrifying weapons but after all, he's human. Bonnie doesn't have her powers anymore which makes her useless, Enzo will be too busy protecting her to even notice me." She made a pause for a dramatic effect. "Who's next? Caroline's too soft and Alaric? I can take him down blindfolded."
The older Salvatore's face turned into a scowl and his every precipitated breath betrayed his barely leashed savagery.
"You forgot someone." He observed, pressing his lips into a straight line.
"Did I?" she inquired with false curiosity, her tone suddenly silvery.
"You forgot me." His words were dripping with acid and hatred. Everyone had a line you'd better not cross – and Katherine felt like she just crossed his. There wasn't a scintilla of humanity or any other emotion in his eyes but pure aversion.
She betrayed him, choosing Stefan over him again; she confessed to loving him after years of deception and sufferance; she toyed with him and made him feel. And now, as if Sybil and Cade weren't enough on their heads, Kai was temporarily back through a spell. All of these things added up in Damon's head, torturing him. Lava schorched his veins; he was a volcano about to erupt.
It all happened too fast. A shimmer of motion and he flung Katherine violently on the ground, unleashing all of his fury, like a star exploding in the cosmos. His hands seized her neck, his grasp akin steel. She gaped both in shock and suffocation, her lungs devoid of oxygen. She was only baffled for a second. The next one, she shoved him with such force that toppled him on his back and she got up gracefully despite the situation. The brunette inhaled the fresh air deeply through her mouth, looking at him warningly.
"I'm not doing this with you." She voiced hoarsely, holding a hand to her throat.
Damon got on his feet as well, forcing a humourless laugh.
"Why not? Hurting me is your specialty. Did your fighting skills get rusty? I should've let those stupid men teach you a lesson."
His words were like spears, pronging mercilessly her heart. She parted her lips in dismay, narrowing her eyes in misbelief. She felt Kai's magic – her magic boil inside her, waiting to be let out and break free. She couldn't control the surge of power that suddenly invaded her and all of her anger aimed towards Damon. A gesture of her wrist hurled the older Salvatore into an oak and she heard his spine break. He muffled a groan of pain, determined not to display his excruciation, although it was clearly depicted on his face.
"I tried." She started bitterly, stepping closer to him. "I tried so hard to protect you from myself. I chose Stefan over and over again, hoping that that would push you away. Hoping that by choosing Stefan, I'll save you."
His body was pinioned to the tree, as if some invisible ropes held his body immobilised. He was as helpless as a bird under the claws of an expert cat. Damon turned his head and spat blood on the ground.
"What are you talking about?" he muttered, his voice weaker than he wanted it to be.
"But you just kept running back to me, like a lost puppy. And because I'm selfish and entitled, I wanted you all for myself. That's why I turned you into a vampire, along with Stefan." She confessed, kneeling on the ground near him. Some rebel strands of hair escaped from her updo and framed her face.
He hated her so much: for her beauty, for her seductiveness, for her ability to wrap him around her little finger. Like always, he let her.
His lungs hurt as he exhaled and gulped. His throat was dry.
"Why did you lie to me for so long? Why didn't you admit that you…" his voice cracked and he cursed himself for being so weak, so manipulable.
"That I loved you?" she continued, raising her eyebrows. She seemed irritated when she answered:
"Of course I would lie, you idiot. I had a thousand-year-old hybrid coming after me. I had Elijah coming after me. I still have more enemies than I can count. I couldn't give you hope. It was the only way to protect you."
Damon laughed hysterically for a moment, looking up to the sky. When he set his eyes on her, they were fathomless and sparkling wildly.
"I'd rather live with hope than despair. I'd rather live with hope and disappointment than self-hate and misery. You didn't protect me. You shattered me."
Katherine felt like he had slapped her. A freezing gust stirred the trees and dishevelled her hair. Damon felt the invisible power holding him in place go away, and he finally relaxed against the tree, eyeing her in silence. She looked exhausted and her young features gave away an oldness that had nothing to do with age.
"I'm not going to apologise for what I've done. If you were me, neither would you." She said, her hand raising to his face and her fingers tracing the line of his cheekbones.
He whipped his head in the opposite direction, shielding away from her touch.
"Go to hell."
/...
The bedlam was put to an end by the sirens. Alaric had to reach to Seline for help and the sisters erased the memory of the guests, so the memorial party could continue normally. It was all done with one condition, that deeply bothered Caroline: she had to ask nicely for Sybil's help. But that was nothing compared to what truly affected her.
"I've called Damon twenty-one times. If he ignores me one more time, I swear to God…"
"Hey." Bonnie interrupted soothingly. She was only pretending to be calm and rational – when Lizzie and Josie admitted to seeing 'uncle Kai', she was about to faint. The news completely overwhelmed her. If it weren't for Enzo, she would've lost it. She almost had a heart attack when she saw the shards aiming at him. The shock of Katherine saving him hadn't worn off. Her hands were still trembling, the images in her mind vivid and terrifying.
Caroline wasn't so good handling her emotions. She kept fidgeting, scurrying through the room relentlessly.
"We'll figure this out." The former witch continued kindly.
The blonde didn't seem to hear her. She dialled the older Salvatore again. This time, he responded. Caroline's stance instantly changed: she straightened her shoulders, her face twisting in anger.
"You jerk!" she exclaimed irately. "Do you have any idea how many times I've called you?" she didn't give him a chance to reply. "Twenty-one times! Get your asses in here immediately!"
On the other line, Damon wasn't in a better mood. He looked up at the sky, lounged as he was on the ground. He hadn't even moved since Katherine left. His cheek was still tingling from her touch, as if her fingers were imbued with fire.
"You'll only have to make do with mine. Katherine's not here." He spoke blandly.
"What?! You let her go? Did Cade fry your brains? Katherine shows up a vampire with magical powers and then I find out that my children have been seeing Kai. Don't you find that suspicious?" she inquiered rhetorically. "She has something to do with this. And you took her out of there before we could find out."
"Well, she's all yours now."
"What is wrong with you?!" she snapped. "I don't…"
She suddenly broke off. She rarely did that, which slightly agitated him.
"Caroline?"
He got no answer. He quickly got up to his feet, sliding the phone back in his pocket. He smoothed his suit and went back to the mansion.
He expected it to be empty, but people were chattering and dancing on the slow music as if nothing had happened. Someone had swept the glass fragments from the floor; there was no visible proof of the earlier chaos. However, there was no one he knew in there. The older Salvatore used his supernatural hearing and discerned their voices above, on the first floor.
"I can't undo it, Caroline. But look on the bright side. It's only temporary." Katherine said, not even trying to conceal her amusement.
"So is your life, if you don't fix this!" Alaric threatened.
He sped to the living room, finding Alaric holding a gun pointed at Katherine; Bonnie glaring at her and Caroline scowling defensively. Four pairs of eyes directed to him and Alaric was the first one to react:
"You knew about this, didn't you?" he surmised.
A feeling of deja-vu enveloped him. Last time he was in this room was ages ago, and Katherine was gasping on the floor in her Masquerade dress, with the moonstone in her hand. Now her stance was majestic, watching the rest with a subtle hint of umbrage upon her features. Her hair cascaded free down her shoulders. Damon hesitated for a moment before the door frame.
"Don't be shy. By all means, join the anti-me team. After all, you're the founder." She greeted playfully, looking completely unperturbed by the gun Alaric held.
Damon ignored her on purpose.
"Okay, Captain America, put that away. Hydra's taking a break." The vampire uttered, suggestively glancing at the brunette.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Caroline snorted sarcastically. "We'd probably consider listening to you if you were on our side."
"I am." objected the older Salvatore. "And as much I want you to shoot Katherine, it's not going to solve anything."
"Look, Caroline. Alaric." sighed Katherine, putting on a diplomatic smile. "I've had a long day. You're enraged and I get it. But you're missing the big picture here. I came back to you willingly." She darted her eyes to Bonnie. "I could've let Enzo die, but instead, I saved his life."
The contempt from Bonnie's eyes faltered for a moment.
"That doesn't change what you've done to two innocent, little girls." The former witch remarked, shaking her head disapprovingly.
"I know. But I'm hoping that what I'm about to do to Sybil will. "
Silence settled in the room. Alaric's grip on the gun loosened slightly. Caroline and Bonnie exchanged alarmed looks.
"Unless you can kill her and not involve my children in the process…" started the blonde, frowning.
"Yeees, do tell." joined another voice from behind. It was Sybil, fixating her eyes on Katherine, filled with venom and defiance. Her fingers elongated and her nails turned black, becoming sharp claws.
She attacked.