The End Of Forever

Chapter 11

The room was completely silent, all eyes were on Damon as he stared blankly at his brother.

They watched, still in shock, as he pulled back his right arm and punched Stefan square in the jaw, with his already broken and bloodied fist.

Stefan stumbled back a few inches, taken by surprise, lifting his hand to touch his cheek. He glanced down and noticed the blood smeared on his fingers.

Damon was seething. "Do you think just because I've become human that I'm stupid? That I've forgotten how you and Elena operate?"

Stefan stared at him, bewildered. "How-?"

Damon rolled his eyes, clutching his hand against his chest. He may be pissed off and devastated but the adrenaline was starting to wear off and damn, it was starting to hurt. He held back a groan, not wanting to let anyone in the room know just how much pain he was in. Not wanting anyone to see him being weak.

So far, this human thing had been a BLAST.

"I took vervain before coming downstairs." He admitted. "I know you, brother and I know her too. I knew if you and Elena were alone for a minute you'd come up with some MASTER backup plan that I would never agree with, in case things went wrong. You all have screwed me over once tonight. I wasn't about to let it happen another time."

He turned away from Stefan, away from everyone, but avoided facing toward the couch. He just couldn't. "Fool me once brother…"

Stefan couldn't find it in himself to argue. It was the truth. He and Elena had plotted against him more than once.

He was about to apologize for his constant meddling when a crash from the basement caught his attention.

Obviously, Tyler had woken up.

Glancing back at his brother, he put a hand back on his shoulder. "I know you're pissed off and upset, but right now, we have to figure out what to do about the semi-awake werewolf that's locked in our cellar. Do you have any wolfsbane laying around the house?"

Damon shrugged Stefan's hand off of his shoulder and started on his way toward the cellar door. "Easy, I'll kill him. Problem solved."

Stefan quickly sped in front of him and held his arms out to stop him. "You're a human now. You can't go around killing people anymore!" He exclaimed

"Says who?" Damon scoffed, trying to get around him. Jeremy stepped up next to Stefan, effectively creating a wall to block him. "Really?" Damon asked.

Jeremy shot a quick look over toward Stefan, then let his gaze rest on Damon. He crossed his arms and puffed out his chest. "I have a duffle bag filled with weapons in the truck, including wolfsbane, it's parked at the front of the driveway."

On the other side of the room, Bonnie wiped the tears from her face and adjusted Elena's body so that she was resting on the back pillows. She picked up both her friends grayed hands, and paced them neatly folded on her lap. Glancing at the engagement ring, she sadly brushed her thumb over it, trying to clean off the dried blood.

Getting up, she made her way over to stand behind Damon and put her own hand on his shoulder, hoping to show a little support. "Damon, let them handle Tyler for now while we come up with a plan okay? You need to calm down and not do anything drastic right now. Anything could have happened. We don't know if she's really dead. Everyone thought we were dead...and we weren't. So lets try to figure things out before we assume the worst." She said, trying to be the voice of reason and give him a little hope.

She felt his shoulders go slack beneath her touch, letting all the tension go. Glad to be at least some help, she squeezed his shoulder. "We should probably get you some ice for your hand." She said softly. She saw him nod and she slowly guided him out of the room and toward the kitchen.

Stefan stared over at Jeremy, thankful for the help. The last thing he needed was Damon going downstairs and trying to kill a werewolf. "Let's go get your stuff from the car."

The pounding headache was back, as was the stomach ache.

Adding to those annoyances, was a constant beeping that Elena was sure was going to drive her insane.

She slowly blinked her eyes open.

A dimly lit hospital room greeted her and she let out an audible sigh of relief. She wasn't dead. But who knows how long it had been since she'd fallen unconscious in that house. For all she knew, that could have been days ago. Glancing over, she began her search for a phone once again. She tried to see if there was one on the night table next to her hospital bed, and when she saw there wasn't, she painfully turned her body so she was facing the other way.

No phone.

But there was a woman sitting next to the bed, her arms were crossed and her head had fallen forward in sleep. She was snoring softly, her breath ruffling the grey hairs that were hanging loose from the messy bun atop her head.

A soft click behind her startled her and she slowly turned back over, toward the door. A nurse stepped in and smiled at her, looking relieved. "Elena! You're awake!"

Elena's throat was too sore to confirm verbally, so she nodded slowly instead.

The nurse nodded at her, understanding it must hurt and stepped up to the monitors on the side of Elena's bed. Elena watched as she checked over some vitals and noted them on the chart she had in her hand. When finished, the nurse looked over at her and smiled again. "You really worried Aunt Judith and Margaret. Margaret was so worried, she didn't want to leave but she finally passed out and Robert took her home." She whispered.

Elena stared at the girl confused. Was she supposed to know this nurse personally? She spoke to her as if she knew all of the members of this body's family.

When Elena didn't respond, the girl reached over and touched her face, a look of concern in her green eyes. "Elena….do you know who I am?"

Not knowing whether to lie or not, Elena finally shook her head.

The nurse took a deep breath and pulled away. "We were afraid of this. I'm going to get the doctor okay? I'll be right back." She pulled a cord from the side of the bed, it looked like a call button, and placed it next to Elena's hand. "If you need anything at all, just press this and I'll come running. We'll figure this all out, I promise." And with that, she silently slipped out of the room.

Elena wracked her brain for answers. Everything seemed so confusing. They knew her name, but they shouldn't know her. She stared down at her pale hands. She was definitely still in that other body that she traveled to, but why did they know her? And why didn't she know them? None of this made any sense at all.

She pushed her head back against the pillows and fought back tears. All she wanted to do was call Damon. He must be so worried at this point. She just wanted to hear his voice. She knew if he had any inkling of what was going on, he would come and take her away from this mess.

But would that be fair to this family?

Glancing back over, she stared at the woman sleeping next to her. She supposed this was the Aunt Judith who the nurse was talking about, and Margaret was probably the little girl she'd seen in the hallway.

Elena wondered if the reason she'd been sent to this body was because it was empty and wondered if that even made any sense at all. If she hadn't taken it over, the woman sitting beside her would be mourning the loss of her niece right now. The girl had meant to die, she wouldn't have gotten out of bed or tried to get help.

Did that mean she could take over this body permanently? She wouldn't have to worry about having to find someone else to take over. It wasn't like when Katherine took over hers, or when Matt had his body taken over. This girl had wanted to die.

But did that mean her body was up for grabs? Was that even morally right?

She briefly wondered if Damon would find this body attractive at all, and then realized how selfish that was. She was lucky to even be alive and have a body at all.

She wished she'd had more time to look at the diary entries before that last one. Maybe they could have given her some sort of clue as to why the girl had wanted to kill herself in the first place. A clue on how to fix things with this family before she disappeared with her own makeshift family back in Mystic Falls.

It felt like this entire thing was just a mess waiting to happen.

She thought back to just before the entire disaster had happened and stared down at her pale hand again. A hand that didn't have her engagement ring on it.

Just a few hours ago.. or what felt like a few hours ago… she'd been the happiest she'd ever been in her entire life. Everything had been perfect. Everyone was happy. It had finally seemed like everything was going to be okay.

She really should have known better. It was Mystic Falls after all. They'd let their guards down.

All she wanted was to get into a pair of her pajamas, crawl into Damon's huge comfortable bed and cuddle up beside him. She wanted to assure everyone that she was okay.

Exhausted, Elena closed her eyes and fell into a restless sleep.

Caroline grabbed another trash bag and began pouring the glass from the dustpan into it. Everyone had pretty much disappeared to other rooms in the boarding house, dealing with their own problems but cleaning was her problem and she would be damned if she was going to leave the house a mess.

Damon certainly hadn't helped matters.

She sighed, sitting back on her heals. She should really find something else to wear, cleaning up the main room was going to be a huge job and her adorable blue lace dress was already destroyed. Little bits of glass were embedded into her stockings and while it didn't really hurt, the feeling of it grating against her skin was just a bit annoying. She stood, slipping off her heels and started peeling the stockings off, throwing them into the garbage bag.

Caroline took stock of the room. There was so much to do. She'd only just finished mopping up the blood from the floor and getting all of the stained glass up. She should probably toss the rugs, because she couldn't get the blood out of those, but she knew how neurotic Damon was about them, so she'd just have to wait until he was a little more stable before asking him what to do about them.

She still hadn't cleaned up the broken lamp or the table he'd destroyed.

Slowly, she made her way over to the couch where Elena was. Would taking care of her former friends body be under the description of "cleaning?"

To a vampire, probably. But she doubted the others would see it that way.

Not that she cared what they thought. But why do work when she didn't have to.

Right?

She plopped down onto the coffee table and leaned her chin on her hand, staring at her friend's body.

"Oh Elena, this wasn't supposed to happen." She sighed. "What happened to always having a plan to save you?"

"This is so STUPID!" Caroline said, slamming her fist down onto the table.

She heard the front door open and close behind her and quickly wiped away the tears that she suddenly realized were dripping down her face, trying to compose herself. Though she didn't turn around, whoever it was probably wasn't in the mood to chat with her.

Whoever it was, didn't need to know that she was so close to turning it back on.

What would be the point of turning it back on? She turned it OFF because her mother died, she wasn't about to come back now and have to mourn not only her mother but Elena too… along with all the other people she happened to kill in the last few weeks.

Nope.

Not gonna happen.

She could hear booted footsteps come into the room and stop directly behind her.

Whatever, she had nothing to say.

"Terribly sorry for the delay love. Usually I have impeccable timing. I see I may have shown up a little too late this time."

Caroline gasped, spinning around and staring up into crystal clear blue eyes.

"Klaus."

So, I obviously failed at updating. I'm sorry for that. The last month has been so insane... that I wish that I could sleep for about 60 years LOL

I was working on this chapter when I posted the last one, I wanted to upload it that day. But shortly after I posted, I got a phone call that my cat (who was only about 7 months old) died after I dropped her off to get fixed. Which was just... absolutely horrible. Between that... a business trip that I planned to write on at the hotel I was staying at but APPARENTLY an internet connection is too much to ask for at a business HOTEL (I was on the phone with IT for about a total of 12 hours when they finally said, oh... its you... FYI it wasn't, they're just retarded... don't ever stay at the ALOFT in North Carolina if you want to get any work done) Being sick twice and trying to plan my cross country move... it's been a little bit insane?

I'm finally getting back into the groove now though, so I'm hoping to update once a week. I'm really sorry for the wait!

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you're happy that I didn't actually make Damon's memories go POOF. I would never do that, it would just be way too unfair.

Love you all.