The Damsel in Distress Diaries
Chapter 11: Unknown
A/N: I strongly suggest listening to Safe and Sound from the Hunger Games soundtrack. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review! It doesn't even have to be a positive one- just tell me what you like and dislike about the story and my writing style so that I can improve it and make it more enjoyable for all of us.

I probably shouldn't have been very surprised to discover that ghosts existed, too. I mean, it made sense, didn't it? If vampires existed, then all of those other impossible, fantastical things- ghosts, fairies, demons, werewolves, mermaids, monsters... Well, then there was a pretty good chance that they were real, too.

Still, my mind was whirling as I sped through the darkened streets of Mystic Falls. How could Bonnie have been possessed? Did something happen that Elena hadn't told me about? Did this have something to do with the vampires?

Of course it did- everything had to do with the vampires these days.

Whatever the reason, I was freaked out enough to leave my car unlocked and race through the front door when I got to the house.

"Elena!" I called when I burst into the entrance hall. She was pacing anxiously, back and forth through the room, and I put my hands on her shoulders. "What happened?"

"Bonnie's been possessed by the ghost of her ancestor!" Elena blubbered, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she raked her hands violently through her straight, shiny hair. "She's been having dreams about this- this Emily person who I guess was this witch during the antebellum era? But she's been using this talisman that Damon gave Caroline and Caroline gave to Bonnie to communicate. And we tried to throw the necklace away but it kept- I don't know, it kept coming back! So Caroline thought it would be a good idea to have a seance-"

"A seance?" I repeated incredulously. "You're kidding me, right-? Oh my God, Elena!" She hung her head and scowled down at the ground as I talked. "I mean, how many horror movies have we seen together? We both know this never ends well!"

"Yeah, well-!" Elena threw her head up, glared at me, and then decided against getting into an argument that we both know would have done more harm than good. "Yeah, well, it's too late now," she repeated in a less angry, softer voice. "I called Stefan. He's on his way."

"So we just have to wait?"

We did, but not for very long. Not a minute later the doorbell rang. Elena yanked it open and there was Stefan, hands shoved in his pockets and an anxious look on his chiseled face.

"Damon heard our conversation," he explained as way of greeting. "I think he might be trying to kill her."

My mouth fell open, and for a split second, I was in shock.

And then the panic set in.

"Oh my God," I whispered. I dug my keys out of my jacket pocket and ran out the door as fast as I could in my ankle brace, Elena and Stefan racing behind me to the Toyota. "Where are they?" I demanded as we hopped into the car and I jammed the keys into the ignition.

"Fell's Church," Elena said from her seat beside me. "I think. Hurry."

She didn't need to tell me twice. I was pushing one hundred as we tore through the streets and off-road paths that lead to the ruin site, Stefan explaining about his attempt to get information out of Damon, and how Damon planned to bring back their lost love, Katherine, who had apparently been living in a tomb beneath the church all this time, by using the crystal. Whether or not this involved killing Bonnie, Stefan wasn't sure.

I tried to get the Toyota to one-fifty.

We screeched to a stop next to the charred remains of the ruin, and Elena and I shrieked when we saw flames licking up the sides of the stone wall. Stefan was out of the car in an instant; Elena and I weren't quite as quick to react, and my brace kept me from running into the clearing at the same time my sister did, but when I got there, I screamed again.

It was a pentagon. A pentagon made out of fire.

And Bonnie was standing in the middle of it.

"What does she mean, 'them'?" Stefan was screaming over the roar of Bonnie's flames. "What part of the story did you leave out, Damon?"

And there he was. Damon was suspended from a tree, one of the branches impaled through his shoulder, and I wanted to scream again- this time out of revulsion. "What does it matter?" he groaned, trying to get himself down.

Stefan sent a burning glare in Bonnie's direction. "Emily!" he shouted. "Tell me what you did!"

Bonnie just stared at him, and it was a look of sharp, steely intensity that I prayed I would never see from her again.

"To save her, I had to save them."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but Stefan sure did, and the look on his face sent a pang of terror into my heart.

"You saved everyone in the church?" he demanded.

And that's when it hit me. The other vampires- the ones who had been in Mystic Falls with Katherine and Stefan and Damon and my and Elena's ancestors- if Katherine was alive, then so were they.

And saving her meant unleashing them on the city.

My city.

"Oh my God," I whispered, suddenly feeling like I was going to throw up.

If that tomb was opened, chances were, everyone I loved was going to die.

Damon was raging on about how he didn't care about the townspeople of Mystic Falls, how we were far from innocent, how everything that had happened so long ago was our fault, how, so long as he had Katherine again, nothing mattered- but I wasn't listening.

I was staring at Bonnie- Emily, because it wasn't my little sister's best friend in there, anymore- as she tugged the talisman off its chain and dropped it into the fire.

There was a simple "snap, pop", and a small jump of sparks, and then it was gone.

The fire died. Bonnie collapsed to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. Elena cried out her name.

And Damon pulled away from Stefan and lunged.

I didn't have time to think, I didn't have time to feel. All I knew was that Bonnie was screaming and Damon was biting her and he had been planning on killing all of us, and yeah, I was kind of crippled at the moment, but I didn't care. I didn't know what I expected Damon to do, and I didn't know if I would even faze him. I simply screamed, "STOP!" so loud that it hurt, and threw myself at him.

And to my amazement, he hissed in pain when my hand clenched around the bare flesh of his wrist. My ankle buckled, his flesh began to sizzle, and the two of us went down.

"Sidney!" I heard Elena shriek.

My ankle was throbbing. My breath was coming out in harsh, painful pants. Damon's flesh still burned where the iron of my ring met it, and I pulled away, rolling off of him.

"Sidney!" Elena yelled again.

"I'm okay," I whispered, even though that was the exact opposite of true.

Because what the actual fuck had just happened? How had I burned Damon's skin just by touching him?

With growing hysteria, I curled around my right hand and pinched the metal of Dad's ring, the one I hadn't taken off since Jenna had given it to me on my birthday.

It had been the ring, I realized, as Elena fluttered around me and Stefan gave Bonnie blood and Damon slowly got to his feet and stumbled over to a nearby log. The ring had burned Damon. I didn't know how, and I didn't know why, but it had done it.

And I was terrified out of my fucking mind.

"I'm okay," I murmured, pushing back my fear and sitting up. "Really, I'm fine, I'm cool, I'm... Just... in shock." I shook my head and bit my lip. "How- how's Bonnie?" I called to Stefan.

He glanced up from her limp, bloody form and looked at me for a long minute. "She'll live," he finally told me.

I bit my lip even harder. Stefan had given her blood. "An- and will she...?"

He shook his head. "No," he said. "Not unless she dies with it in her system." He glanced at my ring, opened his mouth, closed it, and his question went unasked and unanswered.

Because I didn't know any more than he did.

We took Bonnie to my car, and I hung back while Elena coached her out of her hysteria and promised to tell her the truth once we were home. Stefan spent a long while talking to Damon.

I never thought I would see him this broken. But then again, I never thought that he would turn out to be a monster, either.

But I suppose that even monsters can feel.

After what felt like hours, Stefan stood from his seat next to Damon on the log and approached the Toyota, his intentions clear in his eyes. I got up from where I was leaning against the hood of the car, my ankle still throbbing intensely, and met him halfway across the black, smoky clearing.

Stefan wouldn't meet my eyes. "We're leaving," he told me. "You won't have to worry about us anymore. Your family will be safe."

For some reason, I felt tears spring to my eyes when he said that. I didn't know why; I didn't think I would miss him, least of all miss the constant danger that he had brought with him. I wouldn't miss the not-knowing if I would live to see another day, or the not-knowing if Damon would decide he'd had enough of me and kill me and my family in our sleep.

So I bit my lip and turned away, staring at two of the people I cared about most, sitting in the backseat of my car, one sobbing hysterically into the other's shoulder while she tried to fight off tears of her own.

"Elena's not going to be happy," I said softly, instead of what I was really feeling. (Read: I'm not going to be happy, either.)

Because, really, how could he expect our lives to go back to normal after this? After we had discovered that the things we had only dreamed about were real? That Bonnie was a witch and Elena was stronger than any of us had thought and I had somehow burned Damon's flesh just by touching him? Now that Vicki was dead and Matt would never be the same?

And, to be honest, Stefan had been starting to grow on me.

But now he was leaving and I would never see him- or Damon- ever again.

And, like I had felt the first time that Damon had disappeared, my stomach bottomed out and there was nothing but hollowness where there used to be a person. But it was worse this time. Because, this time, I knew the truth.

Stefan stared at me for a long minute. "She'll survive," he decided, and then said, in a much, much quieter voice, "You both will."

And, somehow, I knew that he was right.

But that didn't mean I had to like it.

"Okay," I said, nodding.

Stefan cocked his head toward the Toyota, and, more importantly, Elena. I nodded my consent, he glanced at Damon, and we went our separate ways, maybe forever.

I didn't say anything when I sat down next to Damon, and he didn't say anything to me, either. I don't even know if he realized that I was there. I don't even think that I had completely realized I was there. I couldn't think of a single thing left for me to say to him, but something just felt right in that moment.

It just felt right for the two of us to be sitting there, staring up at the tree tops and the patches of crystal clear night sky you could see between them. It felt right for the both of us to sit there; knowing inherently that the other one wasn't as strong as they had made themselves out to be. It felt right to sit there and not know...

It just felt right.

But nothing based on pure feeling can last, and I knew that I had to say something, because it was going on one in the morning and I could faintly hear Elena through the quiet, screaming at Stefan, begging him not to go, and I knew that she would need to get home soon. That we all would. That... whatever this was, be it a dream or a nightmare, it needed to end.

So I opened my mouth and let the words spill out.

"You know," I whispered, "having a tragic back story doesn't make you any less of a dick."

Damon didn't even look at me. He just kept staring up at the sky and the vast unknown. I tipped my chin down and gazed at my hands, twisting the ring around my right middle finger, light brown waves falling down around my face and hiding the pain in my eyes from him, had he chosen to turn toward me.

There was a hoarse whisper. "Siddie..."

I glanced up at him. He was finally looking at me, and there was gut-wrenching heart-break in those blue eyes of his.

Amazingly, I wasn't crying.

I bit my lip and glanced down at my hands again.

"Good luck," I murmured.

I stood and began the slow trudge back to the Toyota. There was a slight breath from Damon, and he called, "Wait."

I stopped, but didn't turn. "Don't say you're going to miss me," I told him softly. "Don't lie. For once, please. Don't lie to me."

I couldn't see, but I was pretty sure that he nodded. I started walking again. Halfway across the clearing, I looked back. He was standing now, just staring at me.

"Good luck," I told him again, and I meant it this time.

For a moment, Damon hesitated. His eyes slipped down to the ring, and I knew what he was really trying to say when he called back, "Good luck to you, too."

I nodded, he stared, and that was it.

I climbed into the Toyota, turned the keys in the ignition, and drove off; leaving the Salvatores behind for, what I thought was, forever.

If only I had known.

November 4th, 2012
Dear Diary,

They're gone. It's really over.
It's really, really over.

Sincerely,
Sidney

It was close to three in the morning by the time Elena and Bonnie finally went to sleep. I, on the other hand, seemed to have developed a one-night case of insomnia. The moment I heard Elena's soft, distinctive snores, I slipped out from between her and Bonnie and slunk over to the far wall, switching off the over head light and leaning against the door frame, watching the tangle of limbs on my bed with a pensive look on my face and that protective, mothering instinct welling up inside of me.

I felt just a little bit like an idiot.

Stefan had made it exceptionally clear that he and Damon were not going to be coming back- ever. (Or, at least, not while anyone I knew was still alive.) But there was something in me... Something that made me wonder if it really was over. If we were really as safe as the Salvatore brothers liked to think we were.

For some reason, I wasn't so sure.

With a troubled exhale through my freckled nose I pulled away from the door and limped downstairs, my ankle still throbbing from the fall I had taken earlier that night. I switched on the light once I reached the kitchen and went for the tin of vervain tea that Stefan had given me.

It was empty. For some reason, that felt like a premonition.

Tea-less and more than a little shaky, I opened the pantry and grabbed a box of Entenman's doughnuts. My phone was sitting on the kitchen island, and I saw that I had a total of thirteen messages from Anastasia, all of them saying the same thing: Where are you? What's going on? Are you ok?

I didn't bother to respond- mostly because I didn't know how to. I was home, yes, and the nightmare was over, yes, but I had no idea if I was "okay".

I didn't think so.

I took a deep breath, closed the box of Entenman's (there was no way I could even think of eating right now), got on my knees, and started to do something I had barely even thought about since I was twelve: I started to pray.

"Um, hi, God," I said carefully. "It's me, Sidney... Which you probably already knew- if you even exist, but... Yeah, hi. So, I know that I haven't talked to you in like, six years, and I know that I probably don't have any right to be talking to you now, but..." I bit my lip. "I kind of need your help," I confessed. "I- I know that Stefan and Damon are leaving, so everything should be fine, but..." I took a deep breath and continued, "But I feel... I just... Something feels wrong. Something bad is going to happen, and I don't have any proof that it will but I feel it and when it comes, I'm not going to have any way to protect the people I care about. I'm going to be completely helpless- again. And I don't know if I can handle that."

I felt so, so, unbelievably stupid. Kneeling here on the cold, hard kitchen floor, the tile making imprints on my bare knees, staring up at the ceiling like I expected God to just appear above me and tell me what to do at three in the morning.

And that's when there was a soft knock on the front door.

I was instantly on my guard, and I really, really doubt that I need to tell you why. I may have only been in on the whole vampire thing for two weeks now, but I had learned that anything even the least bit out-of-the-ordinary in the middle of the night was usually vampire-related.

Oh my God. I can't believe I just said that.

I shook my head, bit my lip, and grabbed the biggest knife we had in our kitchen before wrenching the front door open...

...and finding Mr. West standing behind it.

"You seem shocked," Mr. West murmured at me from over the rim of the mug of coffee I had just fixed him.

I sent him a raised eyebrow and perched on the counter, staring at him where he sat at the island. "Can you blame me?" I asked, sending a glance at the clock on the microwave. "It's almost four in the morning. I didn't think you even knew where I lived."

Mr. West shrugged. "There's a lot you don't know about me."

I didn't know how to reply to that. Luckily, I didn't need to.

"Your dad and I grew up together," Mr. West started, staring down at his coffee cup and trying to seem casual, even though I could hear the catch in his throat. "Jason and I were best friends through high school. Sure, we grew apart when I went off to college and then globe trotting- but we still talked to each other. I still remember the day he told me he was marrying Miranda- and the day he told me you were coming." Mr. West took a moment to smile warmly at me. "I came back to Mystic Falls when I was forty- but you already knew that. I'm here to tell you what you don't know.

"I know about vampires." He held up a hand to stop my gasp of surprise. "Your father told me when we were fifteen. His dad had just told him."

"Wait," I said, shaking my head in disbelief, "what? My- my dad- the most down-to-earth man I know- knew about vampires?"

Mr. West nodded. "He did," he said. "You see, Sidney... I hate having to do this. It really should have been your father, but he isn't here anymore so I have a duty to do this."

"Do what?" I asked, exasperated. Because, really, it was going on four in the morning and I was beginning to feel just how exhausted I really was.

Mr. West took a deep breath, and set his mug to the side. He leaned forward on his elbows and said, with a gravely rumble in the back of his throat, "Sidney, the Gilberts are a family of monster hunters."