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megabill, jairem, scarlett2112

Chapter 10

Three weeks later there still was no word from Klaus. Caroline wasn't worried stating that he was probably just being petty. She did after all sleep with him after admitting some feelings and then sending him on his way with a promise to never show up again. She tried every day several times a day and Stefan was grateful for it even if he didn't think anything would pan from her idea. Klaus hated Damon, and if anything he would delight in seeing his brother in his current state and the chaos that had erupted between the Scooby gang of Mystic Falls.

Stefan didn't like to dwell on that though, didn't like to dwell on it. Instead he let himself get swept away in any and all activity available to keep him busy which was surprisingly not as hard as he thought it would be.

There was a lot to do in the house and the grounds and Caroline was in full project mode. With the unlimited funds of the Salvatore fortune and his blessing, she went all out and begun making the unused mansion come alive again. They hired cleaners and construction workers and gardeners to do most of the work, but Caroline didn't like to leave things to others, and she would dive right in assisting on everything and sometimes Stefan would join her.

He enjoyed that time alone with her. It was one of the few times he felt like a normal boy who liked a normal girl. She would pick a room and start scrubbing and cleaning or painting or whatever needed to be done and he would come in and ask if she needs help. Of course she didn't but she would always give him a wide smile and say 'duh' and the sound of her light laughter would lift some of the heavy strain he frequently felt in his chest.

The two of them would talk about everything and anything other than what was happening in the cellar below. Stefan would tell her stories of his time there, visiting his uncle in the summer time and the grandeur of the house. Whenever they walked around he would point out what had changed, what had been updated or upgraded. They spent a long afternoon in the garden as he described the rose garden maze his uncle had built for his wife after seeing the one Giuseppe built for Lilly, and Caroline would listen with rapt attention, asking questions and fascinated with every detail.

The distraction of Caroline las forever however and Stefan more frequently than not found himself sitting in the library with a glass of bourbon in his hands thinking about his brother. Feeling lost on how to proceed, how to help him. Right now his only goal was to make his brother comfortable until a solution presented itself.

After that first day when Elena had gone into the cell alone and slowly submitted and gave Damon the cup of blood, she had repeated the act several times a day. Stefan had to admit that it was getting easier for her now as Damon no longer growled or hissed like an animal when she came in. He even let her come closer to him though she had yet to touch him, which Stefan knew she desperately wanted to do. Elena was a very maternal person in life and even more so after death and he knew she just wanted to wrap her arms tightly around Damon and hold him until he was fixed.

That solution though would not work, especially as Damon rejected any and all physical stimulation, though he allows Elena to sit near him. Stefan was just glad she was able to coax him to sit in the corner on the bed and not stay on the floor. Damon still kept himself pressed against the intersecting walls as far back as he could, legs up to his chest and knees readily available to hid his face in if needed, but at least he looked a lot more comfortable. He would sit in that position the entire time Elena was in the room, and was always in the same spot whenever they came down to check on him. Stefan had debated installing a video camera in the cellar to see if he ever moved, but he wasn't sure if Damon would appreciate what little privacy he had being violated.

"Hey man, you alright?" Jeremy asked him startling Stefan out of thoughts and blinked his eyes a few times. He looked up at the young human and gave a small crooked smile at him.

"It's fine Jeremy." Stefan answered quietly, thought Jeremy didn't seem to believe him. The young man sat forward in a chair nearby and quirked his brow studying Stefan with a concerned expression on his face.

"It's not fine Stefan. It's ok to admit it." He said wisely. Stefan nodded his head in agreement to the statement, letting it roll around in his head.

"You're right. Everything is not okay. Everything is a mess Jeremy." Stefan confessed bleakly.

They sat in silence for another few moments and Stefan was regretting his confession until Jeremy sat back and scrutinized him a bit more. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asked sincerely, obviously wanting to help.

Stefan didn't want to talk about it. About anything. He didn't want to analyze, dissect and piece together the situation because if he did, he was afraid they would be worse off and cause them all to lose hope. He couldn't lose hope. He had to have it in order to believe that his brother will get better. It was what kept Stefan in check from going out into town and ripping everyone's throats out drinking their blood. He needed it to keep control.

"No, thank you." Stefan said instead of explaining all the reasons he did not want to talk about it.

Once again silence descended between them. It wasn't uncomfortable as it should have been, but it was actually comforting as Stefan closed his eyes and just listened to the steady rhythm of Jeremy's heartbeat. Usually the sound would send him in a frantic spiral in his current frame of mind, but with the lessons and help from Damon over the past year in controlling the bloodlust, Stefan felt it more calming and soothing then destructive.

"Why Gettysburg?" Jeremy asked, once again breaking Stefan's thoughts. He opened his eyes with furrowed brows curiously at the human, questioning. "Why did you think he was in Gettysburg? Why was he here?"

Stefan inhaled and held the air in his lungs, something he didn't do often as he didn't need to breathe any longer, but the act of doing it was always comforting, allowed him to think more internally as he let the air out slowly and do it again a few times. It was a question that neither Jeremy nor Caroline had asked when told. They just accepted it and followed along. Stefan didn't think it was strange, only that they were distraught at being kicked out of Mystic Falls and therefore distracted, but apparently he was wrong.

"Elena found the pattern and made the connection." Stefan told him.

Jeremy smirked and blinked slowly a few times nodding his head. "She is a smart one, that sister of mine." He commented, and Stefan couldn't disagree. She was very smart, very intelligent, but she didn't have a very good grasp on personal safety or using her mind for better outcomes. She would just jump in and act first to protect her loved ones. It was something that she had in common with Damon.

"Did you know Damon was in the Confederate Army?" Stefan started, watching Jeremy's expression. It was something he liked to do, to see people's reactions to someone being on what is as perceived as the wrong side, especially in the current day's obsession with being PC. But there was no judgement in Jeremy's eyes, just his whole attention as he waited for Stefan to speak again.

"He was in it for about two years. He joined on order of our father, Giuseppe saying it was his duty to the south and uphold the family name." He said. "Damon hated it."

"Damon doesn't seem like the kind of guy to do what he's told if he didn't want to." Jeremy commented.

"Well, human Damon was different and this was our father. Damon was brash and impulsive as he is now, but there was always a kindness and sincerity about him." Stefan said, memories of his brother flashing before his eyes. Stefan gave a slight laugh before talking again. "Damon was a very difficult out spoken person but he wasn't like that just for the sake of being difficult. He saw the world for what it was and he wouldn't, or couldn't let it swindle him. It aggravated our father. So much."

"Still sounds like the Damon we all know and well….maybe not all of us love." Jeremy laughed. Stefan joined in for a second, enjoying the feeling and enjoying the moment shared with Jeremy. He had never given the human much thought other than he had to protect him to save Elena but now he was getting a glimpse of who Jeremy was on his own.

"Trust me it's different. In any case he never believed in what the south was fighting for."

"Slavery?"

"That was just a small part of the civil war but yes, Damon was against it. So was I. We had made a secret promise that whoever inherited Veritas would free the slaves." Stefan remembered fondly. "But it was also about how the southern states didn't like a northern president restricting what they can or can't do. Lincoln didn't try to abolish slavery for the states that already had it, but he wanted to prevent new territories from allowing it."

"The South revolted then right? Starting the Civil War? All because they wanted to enslave people?" Jeremy asked, fully into the story now.

"It wasn't just to enslave people but they felt their way of life was threatened. It was the first thing to be changed and the South feared what else would change. They feared it would prevent Southern expansion." He explained further but waived his hand dismissingly. "But that really doesn't matter now. What matters is Damon never believed in any of that. He was all for industrialization and relying less on slave work. He didn't care about expansion.

He was trapped in a war for nearly two years he didn't believe in and he saw such horrors. When he wrote letters, he always tried to leave out the truth of what was going on but I knew my brother and I read between the lines of his words the horror he was living through. Near the end, before he came home the letters were less like letters and more like lists of names of people who had died. They didn't make much sense and his words writing had diminished severely, they were barely legible."

Stefan stopped then, swallowing hard at the memories. He wondered where the letters were now. He had kept them all for years, holding them close, trying to convince himself that the madness and bloodlust his brother had acted on once they turned was a result of the trauma he had experienced in the army, because when he came home he wasn't the same as when he left.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder?" Jeremy offered helpfully, his face sympathetic.

"I suppose that's what it was. I don't know." Stefan confessed looking down at the ground. "There wasn't such a diagnoses at the time. In any case when he returned it was after the Gettysburg battle. We had no word of Damon for weeks. Then suddenly he came home."

Jeremy's eyes widened and his mouth gaped a few times in understanding. "Damon fought in the Battle of Gettysburg." He stated, but Stefan shook his head. His brother might have been dead if he had but he was sure that if he had survived he would have at least been able to live with himself.

"Just the opposite. They day before Damon had had enough and he deserted." Stefan told him. Jeremy narrowed his brow.

"Damon left? That doesn't sound like something he would do."

"Again, he was different as a human than now." Stefan repeated feeling frustrated. It always frustrated him how humans never seemed to be able to understand or believe that they vampires they know were entirely different people once upon a time. His brother as a human as so far removed from Damon the vampire it physically pained Stefan sometimes to remember it himself.

"I'm sorry." Jeremy said genuinely, and Stefan believed him, and felt slightly contrite for how he spoken to him. But Jeremy didn't seem to hold any resentment so Stefan let it pass.

"It's fine." He swallowed. "Anyways, Damon told Elena it was the first place he should have died."

Stefan blinked a few times to stop the tears that tried to come out when he thought of that. Thought of how close he was to losing his brother. He had been too relieved at the site of Damon coming up the long drive to think anything of it, never connected anything. He always presumed like everyone else in Mystic Falls that it was the battle that had caused him to desert the army and therefore they never looked down upon him.

"His entire regiment was slaughtered on the battlefield, and Damon escaped. I knew that it had hit him hard but I didn't know until Elena told me about him leaving the day before. For the briefest second I felt shame but then I felt nothing but relief. Damon had come close to death so many times in our long lives, usually because of his own fault, but if he had died in that battle…" Stefan stopped, no other words could come out as he tried to control the emotions running through him.

"I get it. I do." Jeremy said kindly. "I can't imagine it but I get it. The whole war, the worry. The number of people who died. But why didn't he ever tell you?"

Stefan thought about it, and there were many answers he could give and there were none in equal amounts. "We were really close as humans. Damon was my big brother, he was my world." Stefan said. "I think out of everything in his existence, that was his biggest regret. That he abandoned his brothers in arms."

"So when Katherine broke up with him, he came back to the location where he originally should have died and drove himself crazy? That's kind of extreme don't you think?" Jeremy asked bewildered. "I mean my girlfriend died, came back and kicked my only family and my friends out of town and I'm still fine."

"But you're young Jeremey don't you see" Stefan said passionately sitting up from the couch to lean closer to him. "You're 17 years old. Ignoring the heightened emotions of a vampire, Damon is 175 years old, and he loves completely and with everything he has. And no matter how strong someone is, there is always a limit until they crash. Damon's was the breakup."

"I still Do-"

"Got it! Hey! I GOT IT!" Caroline's voice echoed around the house. The both of them turned towards the door as the sound of feet hitting stairs sounded as Caroline ran towards them in human speed, took excited to remember she was a vampire. "I got it!" She said again seeing the two of them.

"What? What do you got?" Jeremy asked shaking his head with a smile.

Caroline stood next to Stefan and practically flung a piece of paper into his face, waiving it slightly so he was unable to read it. "Klaus called me back. Oh! He says Hi by the way Stefan and I explained the situation in little detail…" She added seeing Stefan blanch. "And he gave me the name and number of a witch nearby."

With that she handed Stefan the paper and he looked at the address. "Judith Newberry, Albany New York." He read. "I'm sure there are closer witches." He said incredulously, as Caroline nodded enthusiastically.

"Oh, there are, many in fact, but this is the one he recommended." She said. "He pushed for more details but he said that whatever my vague problem is it sounds big and Judith, never Judy, would be our best bet."

"Do you think he's lying?" Jeremy asked gravely looking back and forth between the two vampires.

"No." Stefan said firmly. "Despite what issues we've all had together he wouldn't do anything to put Caroline in harm's way. "

"Or you Stefan." She added. "He's still hoping you'll remember your friendship someday. He misses you."

"Regardless," Stefan said ignoring her words. "I trust it." The three stayed in silent for a few moments before Caroline clapped her hands together loudly gaining their attention.

"Alright! Time for a trip. I'll go pack."

Damon stared out the glass of the door at Elena, meeting her eyes steadily, unblinking. He didn't want her there, didn't want her near him. Just looking at her caused his heart to ache and relive the memory of her breaking away from their relationship over and over again.

He wasn't sure exactly where he was, or how he got there. It really didn't matter to him either way. The holes in his memory should alarm him, and his obvious imprisonments should as well, but all he felt was calm. A calm despair that ran through his entire body, numbing him from any feeling at all.

Elena shifted on the other side of the glass, finally blinking and breaking the staring contest that had been going on. Damon was relieved as he closed his eyes tightly and tilted his head back into the corner, feeling a sharp pain as he hit it harder than he intended.

It felt good, the pain. Kept him grounded in the here in now that he so desperately escaped from as frequently as possible now. He hated the pain she had caused him, hated that he let himself become so vulnerable with her, let her so close to him, yet he couldn't keep his eyes off her. As long as she stayed on the other side of the glass, Damon could stare at her forever.

Forever…exactly what he had thought he would have with her.

The ache in his heart throbbed and his eyes shot opened, immediately finding her again. He saw her shift slightly as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She looked so sad and a huge part of him wanted to reach out for her and hold her until she smiled again, an impossible task since he apparently had been placed in the room he was in.

Waking up that first morning he was in there had put him off balance. He hadn't recognized his surroundings and he was alone. The lights were low and soft, soothing in a way. The sparse furniture was nice, nicer than any cell he'd ever been in before. There was even a private bathroom, albeit small, but there it was nonetheless. The floor was carpeted, there were clothes in the drawers of the dresser, and there was even a framed picture of him with Elena.

He immediately smashed that to bits. Damon didn't want to look at the happy smiling faces behind the frame. He didn't want a reminder in his tiny prison that he had had heaven and everything he ever wanted in his grasp, only to be torn away so viciously.

When a door opposite his own was opened and footsteps could be heard, Damon had immediately shrunk back into the corner in which he had found himself in, binding himself close, trying to disappear into the shadows while he waited for his capturer to come.

The last memory of that first day awake was seeing Stefan and Elena peer into his cell with saddened expressions, then everything went black again.

It had happened multiple times over the course of his time there. He wasn't even sure how long he had been where he was. It was always the same, every time. He would wake alone, looking around blearily, taking stock of everything in the room to see if anything had changed. And then he would wait. Wait for what he was never sure of but eventually Elena or Stefan, or both came down and he would stare at them until his chest hurt too much and the breath he didn't really need felt stale and painful. Then the darkness would come and he knew nothing more until he awoke.

Hearing footsteps descending the stairs that lie beyond Damon bunched his limbs closer to his body. He knew it had to be Stefan, it could only be Stefan, nobody else came down, but even the sight of his brother caused him pain, and he felt he had to brace himself.

As expected Stefan stepped into view and Damon lowered his eyes to the soft grey blanket below him. He didn't want to see his brother, didn't want his mind to bring forth all the pain that the two of them had inflicted upon each other over the years. He had loved his brother once, cherished him as they were human. He still loved him now but would never admit it.

Damon closed his eyes again as the voices came through the glass, muffled and he could barely hear. He was pale and thin but he wasn't desiccated so he supposed they fed him during the times he was with the darkness, but he figured by how weak his vampire gifts were they probably kept him on animal blood.

They were right to do so.

He continued to stare at the blanket until the voices begun to raise in anger, causing Damon to startle slightly. He glanced toward the window, seeing the angry expression on Stefan's face, unable to see Elena's as her back was turned towards him. He wished that he could hear what they were saying and hoped it wasn't about him.

But then Stefan took a step forward and Elena stepped back, her back hitting the door that separated Damon from them hard, causing Damon to jump slightly and hide his face in his knees. He didn't know why he was so frightened, or what he was frightened of. He was weak from lack of human blood so he knew he wouldn't be able to take them if they came from him. Once upon a time he would believe without question that Elena would protect him if needed, but since she broke his heart that time had passed and now Damon was sure he was more afraid of her than of him.

The voices came in waves, high and low, and Damon wished for the darkness. The stress of it all, the pain and ache he felt at seeing and hearing the two people he had once loved more than anything, it was becoming too much for him and he didn't want to deal. He didn't want to handle this, he didn't want to confront this, and he didn't want anything to do with them. He wanted to run, to escape, to be anywhere but near them. He was always the strong one, always, but Damon just couldn't handle anything anymore. He wanted the darkness, he wanted out.

By the time the last lock was unlatched and the door was pushed open, the darkness had taken him.

A/N: Again please RR.