Hello, all!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I know I promised I would be continuing this in the later months of this year, but it seems I can't stick to my words— especially when stories I /love/ are involved.

Don't hate me after reading this outcome, it was the way the story was always meant to go. And the aftermath will be posted as soon as possible.

More stories will be posted— despite the show ending this year.

Love,

InsomniousInk

XO


Elena


I lay with him for a while, watching the rays come in from the window, gliding across his back that is bare and freckled from days serving in the sun.

We ate last night, ordering in the little restaurant below, sharing a comfortable silence.

I didn't know, as I portioned off slices of desert, if I was going to tell my parents about the connection between Jeremy and Damon, the topic alone so fragile. It could break them, it could break whatever me and him had. It could shatter everything.

Though as I awoke, to no little or no less, a brain still brimming with speeding questions and no answers, I couldn't help but for a moment forget the world and enjoy the comfortable tension between us. It was a warm, inviting feeling, being beside the one you love and care about.

Love. Never did I think that word would be relevant in my life again.

I loved him.

It brought a fork like stab to my stomach, skewering my insides in a pain unlike no other. I hadn't loved. . . not since Matt, and that infamous ending was enough to have me running for the hills.

Though I did love him. I loved his stubborn exterior and dreary invitingness. His lips that were so selflessly focused on massaging my worries away. His hands that were tarnished at the knuckles. His eyes that were in a constant state of turmoil.

Yes. Damon had struck me hard and fast, a lightning bolt that came from a sunny sky. Unexpected, unwanted, but still there.

He began turning when rays of light poured through the curtain, thick bands of yellow that shined in his face.

A groan, a cough, an arm that securely went around me.

As I stared into the wall, finding cracks and specs of dust that I hadnt before, I could feel the fiery line of his stare in the back of my head. I breathed slowly and steadily, eventually turning to face his wild and awake gaze.

"I'm okay." I firstly said, interrupting any awkward hello. We didn't need an introduction. We had already said enough in our dreams.

His laying arm lifted, a thumb brushing under my eye, catching what I expected to be a stray tear—not feeling it until there was but a swipe of wet left.

He then didn't say anything more, leaning in, invading my pained territory—washing away fear (fear for not wanting to feel) and inner agony.

"Shh." He said, a slow 'hush' of breath that vibrated against my lips. We kissed, slow, soft and meaningful, him raised on his elbows and me a limp body of distraction beneath.

I mewled, whining against our kiss, and he frowned, bringing me closer into him.

We decided in that moment, between tongue and skin, that we would go back together, that we would live out our days of fake, fabricated happiness in the Gilbert household—and the rest be a bridge we would come to, a decision that would be made at the ticket office, when one passport would fly one way, and perhaps the other, another way.

Breakfast was missed, and he bid me goodbye in the doorway to his room, his lower half wrapped in a towel, and his hair soaked from a shower. He looked beautiful, that I couldn't deny. A dark, dishevelled God that had so selfishly interrupted my life.

"I'll see you in a few minutes." I promised, sauntering down the hallway, getting the elevator up to a new floor.

The room was cold when I entered it, a steady blow of ice and snow coming in from the open window. I sighed, my breath a fog and hands shaking as I wrought it shut, frost licking the furniture in an unnatural, twilight-zone way. I worked as hard as I could to find my belongings and get gone.

Though as I picked up my bag, bringing out my phone to see a low battery, but bright and alive screen—I noticed the 13 missed calls from Caroline.

A sickness—unlike no other—rose in my throat, and I dropped everything and hit dial.

She answered on the fourth ring.

"Hello?"

"Elena! Do you not check your phone nowadays?"

"I was with Damon, I left it in my room—what's going on? Is mom and dad okay?"

"No," She steadied herself with a sigh. "Amy is missing."

"Missing?" I frowned, alarmed.

"She was home yesterday," Caroline explained, "though after Richard and I got home with the kids, mom was frantically crying and dad was out with his gun in the garden, looking for her."

My loud, obvious swallow hit that air as a glug.

"We'll be home as soon as we can." I promised.

"Hurry."

...

I didn't expect the urgency in his body, though as we fought for a taxicab outside the hotel, worry framed him into a state of stiffness; moving in quick, hurried jabs that only caused me to fumble behind. He flagged one down before I managed to wrangle my bag out the door, and in a matter of moments, I was being whirled through the foggy, frozen side of town and into the country, fear sticking like sugar to my teeth as they chattered with the cold.

He was bouncing his knee impatiently, massaging the muscles of his defined jaw.

I thought of Amy, fearful and alone on a sidewalk, blue with death.

What a stupid, silly thought. Ridiculous. Sick.

Though it wouldn't vanish, only growing deeper in detail, twisting my stomach more.

Her blonde tuff of curls, her brown eyes, her head against the curb. . .

I winced without realising, and his head snapped to me, noting the fear that wrangled at my eyes and lips—both sore and raw. He only lurched forward, smacking the arm of the driver and asking him to hurry. It sped up our drive by a few minutes, though we still arrived three-quarters of an hour later.

Caroline was waiting on the drive for us when we arrived.

"It's okay." She whispered, her ivory skinned arms wrapping around me as Damon paid for the cab. "I wouldn't go inside, not yet. . . Mom is frantic and Dad is out."

"Where is Richard?"

"With the kids upstairs."

I widened the width between us, peering into her eyes that looked distraught and tired and rimmed with sadness.

"What do you think?" I asked.

She swallowed once, and peered behind my shoulder, smiling weakly to Damon's presence. "I think she's seriously hurt."

I felt his stern breath against the back of my neck, followed by his shadow as it blocked the blinding sunlight. His words hindered me. "We'll want to start looking immediately. Cars are a good choice to use in this weather, though on foot would be best. If she can't drive, there's a higher possibility she would have wandered off-road rather than follow the pavement."

Caroline registered this better than I did, and nodded with a business-like expression. "I can go out in the car and start looking. Dad is out on foot. Mom is by the phone."

"I'll search the roads." Damon suggested, and my hand instinctively went to his hand, holding with fear.

"I'll go with you."

He didn't meet my eyes, though there was a nod, and then he was shrugging off his rucksack and prying out a large, navy jacket. . . the one I had worn in the airport that day. He offered it over, and I shrugged into it with a comfort, breathing in the musky scent that came off of it like heat.

I heard the rumble of Caroline's Volvo as it took off into the distance, and then filled the silence with a sigh.

"Hey," he said, raising my chin with his thumb, "we'll find her."

I nodded, swallowing down the worry.

We took off into the snow as the afternoon began to settle in, moving through the trees until nightfall.


Damon


The moon was bright and brilliant, and it cast down a silver glow across the undergrowth; a natural light in this abyss of darkness.

Elena was travelling behind, her feet stumbling through the twigs and moss, unlike my movements that were silent and still. I caught her from falling a few times, and embarrassedly, she bloomed a light pink, one that could only be deepened if I kissed her mouth in reassurance. She was so beautiful. There was a selfishness in me that longed to take her back to the hotel and close her away from this world—one that I had so brutally experienced. Though longingly, she wished to find her sister, and her woes were my priority.

We would continue walking, and for her, stumbling.

The trees began to narrow the deeper we searched, heading off the pavement and into the meat of the Virginian outskirts; the dirt floor thinning into muddy leaves the closer we got to the wetter parts of the land, rushing water heard in the distance.

Elena slipped as the path cornered off into a hill, tumbling a few steps down.

I caught her beneath the arm, her forehead lightly grazing the trunk of a tree; breaths coming out in great wheezes.

"Baby," I said, hoisting her from the floor, an unknown sense of concern in my voice. She gripped the roots of my arms, her tiny fingers squeezing as she swallowed down the adrenaline that built in waves instead of streams; blood lining her cheek. I brushed it away attentively, and kept her close for moments.

"That was. . ." She laughed, half breath, half chuckle, "scary."

An amused grin took one corner of my mouth, short lived by the scream that came in the distance. Our heads turned, but mine was quicker, and in the bitter darkness of the distance, I saw a flash of blonde hair dart through the trees, diving towards the running water. I fled Elena's side and dived after it, running through the trees that zipped past, her sweet begs for me to stay lingering in the distance.

Amy ducked beneath an overflow of trees, heading towards a murky fog that blinded me entirely. I ran without sight, slicing through that grey with narrowed eyes, only realising I was in water when the splashing slowed my strides.

"Amy!" I heard Elena yell from behind, her voice jumbled as she gasped and heaved breath, trying to catch up.

Cold pain darted up my calves, and I retreated to land, squinting to make sense of the grey haze in which she ran off into. There was nothing but a fog of steam on the water's surface, and a strip of muddy leaves. No sign of her.

The impending footsteps of Elena were nearing, and just as she reached me, I saw to the side but a bridge that stretched to another island of shrubbery. I took off to its length with large, wagging strides, finding on it a scene of the strangest sorts.

There I saw, Amy, crouched against the railings with but a towering figure at her side, appearing feeble and afraid.

"—never do that again." The body growled, and a slap – louder than the hissing crack of a whip – came across her cheek, prompting a squeak of indifference. Amy sniffled, and my anger boiled.

I neared the figure with an outstretched hand, close enough to break a bone.

Though Amy's eyes flickered, and widened with surprise, landing on me and giving away the element of surprise. The figure turned, and struck out a fist, staggering me backwards with an aching jaw.

Matt.

He struggled for something in his pocket, and I regained my stance, momentarily dazed by the outlet of anger that pushed from his knuckles. I caught another fist as it came down, and jerked left, twisting with the action, his muscles. Matt yelped, and came to one knee, his slack jaw snapping shut as I kneed that chin.

Amy struggled to stand in the distance, Elena closing in with horror.

"Soldier." Matt growled, cradling his face.

Elena released a hiss of disgust, her arm slinging around her trembling sister. "What the hell is going on?"

A line of red dribbled out of Matt's mouth, and with it came a splutter of laughter. "Your sister here has been… entertaining me."

Amy whimpered and hid in Elena's chocolate blanket of hair.

"I thought he loved me." She said, and the pieces fell into a perfect picture.

Elena's mouth slackened in disgust, and she turned away with teary eyes. "You're vile."

He shrugged without care, "she was good in the sack. But not as good as you, Elena."

This was when the rage turned into flaming anger, and out poured my disgust, gripping him by the shoulder and heaving him to a stand. I had every urge to throw him over the bridge, to have him plummet into the water that was but a surface of ice on this side—not a wave or stream to be seen.

Though he was quicker, with reaching that sharp something in his pocket.

A piece of glass tore through the skin in my side, and blood came gushing to the frozen surface of the bridge; pain streaking like no other.

"No!" Elena screamed, leaving her sister's side to flee after my staggering body.

I went over the barrier and flew to the bitter end, hitting and shattering that frozen surface, sinking into the cold beneath. The water was black down here, and my death came quickly.

Gone.