author's notes: thanks to all you lovelies that left me comments on the last chapter. hope you enjoy the new one! please read & review!
setting: right after 1x14, goes AU from there.
disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination
MALUM DISCORDIAE (apple of discord)
chapter 12: spellbound
The Council doesn't leave her out of its sight; there's someone in the room with her at all times. Sheriff Forbes relieves one of her deputies in the early hours of the dawn. Amelia strains against the ropes around her arms again, but they refuse to budge. Jonathan knew what he was doing when he injected her with the blood; it was enough to keep her conscious, to keep from falling into pieces, but not nearly enough to feed her or give her any strength. When she meets Elizabeth Forbes' eyes from across the room, there's hatred in her eyes that she recognises all too well. She sees it every time a human finds out just what she is, just what she's supposed to be. An animal not to be reasoned with.
"Why did you do it?" the sheriff asks, though Amelia doesn't immediately know what she means. "Why Damon?" she adds. Amelia knows she's on thin ice here; Jonathan had promised to protect Damon's and Stefan's identity, but that only worked as long as she held onto what little trust he still seemed to have in her. It was best for her own sake to play along; in this room Damon is supposed to be her enemy.
Amelia manages to laugh; this isn't too difficult a game to play. "You're joking, right?" Amelia smiles, even though her entire body is pulsing with pain. She thinks it's curious how Damon has fooled these people completely into thinking he is one of them; they all wear vervain, so she guesses she must have taught him something once upon a time. "That little egocentric prick." And that isn't even too far off bat. "He got exactly what was coming to him."
"How many did you kill, Amelia?" the sheriff continues her questions, clearly disgusted by Amelia's very presence. But Amelia knows she can't help that. "The girls in the woods?"
"I haven't killed anyone in this town." Unless one got specific on the details of course; technically she had killed Damon once upon a time, and she'd killed Alaric Saltzman quite a few times last night. But not the girls that had gone missing. She doesn't kill to feed anymore, not if she can help it.
"You attacked Jeremy Gilbert and Alaric Saltzman."
Amelia's eyes darken; she can feel her breathing deepening, her chest contracting painfully again. Why can't these people ever see? Why don't these people ever realise? All she wants is to be left alone, and in return she leaves humans to their business. "They attacked me," Amelia corrects. "I defended myself and still allowed them to live." Which is more than any other vampires would have granted them. "I can't change who I am. And I certainly won't apologize."
"No, what you are," the sheriff spits, and takes a few steps closer to her. She points at Amelia vehemently; she can't believe how this happened; how can Amelia be a vampire? How could she not have seen this danger when it stood directly in front of her? "You are not someone, not anyone, you're something. You're a soulless bloodthirsty creature. You're not right."
Amelia can see it now, the guilt, the self-blame; Elizabeth Forbes blames herself for not having seen what she is sooner. But Amelia knows that humans only see what they want to see; it's one of the many reasons Damon moves so easily in their circles. "If that's what you truly believe, Sheriff Forbes, then you don't know anything about vampires."
"You're killers." How could Amelia could have sat there, in the Salvatore living room, and offer her vervain? How could she not have seen it?
"Not all of us," Amelia amends, but she knows there's little she can say to dissuade the sheriff in her beliefs.
"You've never taken a life?"
"See now that's not fair." Amelia tilts her head, despite the pain it causes. All her muscles have begun to atrophy; that's what happens when a vampire doesn't feed on time. It won't kill her in the long run, but it'll keep making her weaker up to the point where she won't even be able to move. "I killed when I was human to protect those I loved, and that is all I still do. In death, a vampire only becomes an enhancement of its once human self. Stronger, and in so many ways more emotional. Instinctual."
"Why are you telling me this?" the sheriff turns around again, facing her. If Amelia thinks she can talk her way out of this she's very much mistaken. Once John is done with her, she'll burn.
"To make you see, Elizabeth," Amelia breaths, feeling the muscles in her entire body shrinking; she's having problems speaking, "that vampires can be rated just like humans can. Not all of us have the same low moral standards."
"What's wrong with you?" the sheriff asks, watching Amelia struggle to catch her breath.
"Starvation is quite painful," Amelia speaks through clenched teeth, her body begging her for blood she can't give it.
"I thought John..."
The pain momentarily subsides, allowing Amelia to speak again. "Jonathan gives me what I need to keep me talking. My body needs more to heal. And that's your point, isn't it? Our hunger, that's what separates us." The sheriff turns again but halts at the door. "Are you really quite sure about that?" Amelia adds, the question echoing through the hallway as the sheriff opens the door and leaves Amelia to her thoughts.
It doesn't take him long at all to pick up the boy's scent; even with the blood he's lost in the woods his hunter's instinct is stronger than ever, fuelled by hatred, the need to revenge Amelia's death, the craving at the core of him to feed on human blood. He's no longer thinking; he doesn't care about who sees him, or who knows exactly what he is. Amelia was never ashamed of what she was, and had taught him to never let anyone debunk what he truly was. That is one lesson his brother had never learned.
He sees Jeremy exiting city hall alongside Alaric Saltzman. Right, the history teacher. He watches how Alaric hands Jeremy something; he can't make it out from his vantage point across the street, but is too busy devising how to kill young Jeremy, how to hurt him good and proper and make sure it's something he himself will remember for a very long time. They both take off in opposite directions. Unfortunate, but Damon knows he'll get his hands on the other later. Right now it was all about taking out his revenge.
Damon steps out of the shadows right in front on his unwitting victim. "Hello, Jeremy," he says, feeling the grin spread across his face once he sees fear strike Jeremy's face. He's not thinking about how this boy is Elena's brother, how he'd once erased his memory just because Elena had asked. None of that mattered. Elena didn't matter. Stefan didn't matter. Life didn't matter. Not anymore.
"Damon," Jeremy breaths, and starts looking around for a way out.
"You could try," Damon says, but very much doubts that Jeremy is capable of running right now. He can smell his fear, alarm almost tangible in the space between them. But fear doesn't seem enough at this point; he wants horror, terror, he wants pain, he wants Jeremy to feel exactly what he was feeling when Amelia died in his arms; anger, despair, guilt. So much guilt. It's his fault Amelia came here, always unappreciative of what she did for him, what she tried to teach him. He'd always been so focused on Katherine, and what for? She abandoned him when he'd needed her the most, or that's what he likes to tell himself. In truth, the only one who'd always been there for him was Amelia.
And he'd got her killed.
Damon takes a uneven step backwards when he feels his emotions hit him again like a sledgehammer, his chest aches and he feels a dull thud where his heart should be beating. He'd tried, he tried so hard to forget, or at the very least not to think about Amelia, but how could he not when she was the exact reason he was here now? For her. To revenge her.
"Not exactly a fair fight," Jeremy says, and oh yes, there it is, his anger-renewed.
Damon attacks Jeremy; he moves fast, grabbing Jeremy by the arm and dragging him into an alley; he slams Jeremy's body into a wall, his skull connecting with the bricks hard. "You think I care about that right now?" Damon sneers, his hand a crushing weight on Jeremy's chest. "Amelia created me, do you have any idea what you took from me?"
"Like you took Vicky!" Jeremy shouts almost immediately, and again Damon is knocked off his feet. Of course Jeremy is right; Damon killed someone Jeremy loved as well. And for what? Just because he was bored. Jeremy is right; he's done much worse. "Like you took Elena!" Jeremy adds. For a human being, Jeremy isn't the smartest in the pack, Damon thinks, because how can he believe that Elena is a vampire? Still, he knows from past experience just how persuasive Katherine can be.
"Elena is still alive, you little..." Damon sighs, but fails to find the right word. "You got punked."
"What do you mean?" Jeremy asks, struggling only feebly against Damon's hold on him.
"Katherine Pierce, the vampire that turned Stefan, she's one of Elena's ancestors. They're identical," Damon explains, but he can see it does little to convince Jeremy that it's the truth. What does he care? What does it really matter? He's hungry, his teeth hurt and his leg is still itching from where the vervain-drenched stake had cut through his skin. And Amelia, she's gone.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Jeremy asks strongly. As a matter of fact—, Damon thinks, but refrains from uttering it out loud. It doesn't matter.
"I honestly don't care what you think, Jeremy," Damon says, and without giving it another thought, without a single doubt – he bites down in Jeremy's neck, his fangs ripping at the human flesh, drinking deep with an anger in his very bite that makes Jeremy scream out for one single second. Then, right after taking his fill, feeling blood drip down his chin and onto his black shirt, Jeremy drops down dead at his feet. He's breathing heavily when he looks down on Jeremy's corpse, but he hardly feels another thing at all.
One down, one more to go.
Damon wipes at his blood-smeared chin with his hand before closing his eyes. He looks for Alaric's scent in the air; it's not far off, picking up right at city hall. He only wonders briefly what Jeremy or Alaric had been doing there, discarding the thought once he picks up Alaric's scent properly. It seems Mr Saltzman steadily made his way through town, moving fast out of town, almost running even. Why in such a hurry?
The little witch – Bonnie was it? – passes him in her car, heading the same way Alaric's scent seems to be leading him. The boarding house. Right back where he started. What is Alaric doing here now? Looking for him, to finish him off? Or looking for that pathetically human sentiment, redemption? The thought alone sets his veins on fire, blood boiling, and before he knows it he's running, past the witch's car, past the woods, right into the house.
"What the hell is he doing here?" is the first thing he asks, before even taking in his surroundings. Alaric gets up from the sofa when he sees Damon. Stefan and Elena are standing not too far from him. What tales had he been spinning them? He realises suddenly he hasn't told his brother about what happened in the woods; Stefan or Elena don't know Alaric was there, holding him down while Amelia died.
"You're bleeding," Stefan says when he sees the state his brother is in.
"Not my blood," Damon answers in short, not thinking about how he'd killed Elena's brother and had thoroughly enjoyed it, not even thinking about Amelia in this one instant. He doesn't once take his eyes off Alaric Saltzman, the history teacher that had undoubtedly been the reason why Jeremy was in those woods looking for his own personal revenge in the first place.
"Damon, what did you do?" he hears Elena ask, the worry laced deeply in her voice, but he doesn't take notice of her words. I killed your brother, he almost says, in a bout of blinding fury, but something still manages to stop the words from spilling out. For whatever reason, Elena chose to see something in him that Stefan hasn't seen in over a hundred years.
And then the next second he's lifting Alaric up from the ground by his throat, hand crushing around Alaric's neck. "I believe I asked you a question," Damon rages, not even noticing that he's giving Alaric absolutely no room to answer him in the first place. Maybe that doesn't even matter; he just needs him dead.
"Damon!" Elena shouts, and pulls at his arm. "Amelia's still alive!"
A beat and Damon is distracted again, arm going slightly slack but not enough for Elena to pull Alaric free. "What?" Damon asks, but doesn't look at Elena.
"According to Alaric she survived," Stefan is on his other side in the blink of an eye. "She got up and lived." Stefan grabs Damon's free arm, Elena still tugging the arm holding Alaric in the air. "Damon, let him go," Stefan insists, but feels his brother's strength oozing from him; Stefan can tell he's recently fed. He doesn't want to think about who he killed.
"We're expected to believe that?" Damon rebuffs, looking up at Alaric, who is running out of air fast. "He's the one that led your brother there!" Damon shouts, and sees the memories flash in front of his eyes vividly. The stake coming his way, but Amelia was between it and him without him desiring her to be. Because that's the truth; he does love her – he'd die for her too. "They were waiting for us in the woods." And come to think that they were in those woods to protect this pathetic little town in the first place. What a waste.
"Jeremy?" Elena stops trying to break Alaric free; she knows the only way to save him is to reason with Damon, which seems impossible right now. She can't blame him; she'd be irrational too if she watched someone she loved die in front her eyes. But Amelia was alive, Alaric said; they had to make Damon see the truth. But her brother? "What does he have to do with it?" she asks.
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Damon says, his eyes darkening. "It was your brother that staked Amelia. It was meant for me, but Amelia..." Damon gets lost in thought again, seeing, feeling Amelia in his arms, those green eyes begging him to run, to save himself, and he had, selfishly so. Maybe it had been better for everyone if he'd died instead. But no, no! that's not why he was here now. "But it's his fault!" Damon shouts, crushing Alaric's windpipe with one hand.
"He's telling the truth!" someone squeals from the other end of the room suddenly, and all of them turn towards the voice at once. He hadn't heard her car pull up. In the doorway stands Bonnie, clutching Emily's grimoire tightly to her chest, heart pounding in her ears. "Amelia's still alive."
Damon stares at Bonnie strongly, at the absolute fright in her eyes upon seeing the scene in front of her, but the determination in her voice was not to be mistaken. Could it be? Could Amelia still be alive? "HOW?" he shouts, because he doesn't believe it. If he allows himself the hope, even the tiniest hope, he could risk the same heartbreak all over again. And he's not sure he's strong enough to handle that.
"Put him down first," Bonnie asks boldly, her fingers curling around the thick volume in her arms.
"Damon," Elena says, picking up on Bonnie's urgency, and grabs Damon's arm again. "Please. Hear them out." She squeezes Damon's arm, and he turns her head to look at her, slowly, but he lowers Alaric at the same time. He drops Alaric on the sofa, gasping for air and coughing, fully aware that Damon is not letting him out of his sight, hands clutched into fists by his side.
"It's all in here, Emily's spell book."
That spell book has been a pain in the ass from the moment it came into his life, and now it was meant to be his salvation? How could Emily have known Amelia would survive being staked, if that's what really happened in the first place. He's still not convinced; Amelia can't be that old. Only the Old Ones can survive being staked, and he was the one who'd seen, the light in Amelia's eyes going out.
But Stefan has already moved to stand by Bonnie's side, just like Elena. Damon can't, he can't believe, he can't hope, he can't think about Amelia being alive again. Not now; it would hurt too much. "According to Emily, Jonathan Gilbert never actually succeeded in inventing anything," Bonnie says, flipping through the pages of Emily's book. "She secretly spelled them all with magic. Compass, rings, and this..."
Damon doesn't know what she's pointing at, so moves to stand by his brother's side to take a proper look. The device on the page looks like the Gilbert compass, only this one seems like it needs to be combined with a wooden box. "Emily pledged her loyalty to Katherine," Bonnie continues. "But she couldn't stand by and watch innocent people get killed. This was the only way she could think off to help. To let Jonathan Gilbert believe he actually invented these devices."
"What does that have to do with Amelia?" Stefan asks, the same question about to roll off Damon's tongue. Damon can tell his brother is already allowing himself the hope he's denying himself. Sure, Stefan loves Amelia, but for the first time ever in his lifetime he's starting to suspect his own love for Amelia is something else entirely, and definitely runs deeper.
"There's a journal entry Emily wrote, dated two nights after the fire in the church." Bonnie flips another page, revealing a page filled with Emily's small penmanship.
"I can't read this." Damon's eyes narrow on the page, but he sighs. "What's it say?"
Bonnie reads:
The Salvatores left town early this morning with Amelia by their side.
I do not know what to make off her; despite my powers she is difficult for me to read. But I know she will watch over them until they can stand their own. I never wished Katherine's curse on either Stefan or Damon, but I can understand why she chose to turn Damon. I think she might already love him, even if she does not see that herself.
"Can we—" Damon starts, but swallows hard before continuing. A lump is steadily making its way up his throat that he's trying to keep down. He won't allow himself to feel this, not now. "—skip this part? Get to the relevant passages."
Bonnie continues:
I hid the crystal in a safe place, the same place I promised Damon he will find it when the next comet passes by. He promised me he would protect my family, and I do not believe I have any reason to mistrust him. But how can I trust a creature such as him? I could not live with myself if those vampires ever woke up again.
I will be long gone when the next comet arrives over Mystic Falls. What if none of my kin survive that long? What if I am not able to return and prevent Damon's plans?
So last night, I spelled Amelia. She is strong enough, her body old enough to handle the charm. I hope that it is enough.
"She spelled Amelia?" Stefan asks, frowning. Was such a thing even possible? He'd never seen any evidence that Amelia was under the influence of a spell. "To survive a staking?"
"To survive anything that would otherwise kill a vampire," Bonnie says, opening the grimoire to the spell that Emily used on Amelia. "I've never seen a spell like it. This is heavy magic. Emily knew that Damon would protect her family for as long that it served his own purposes. She knew that once she destroyed the crystal only Amelia could control him."
Damon would find the time to feel insulted by Emily's words if his mind wasn't racing to a much more important conclusion. "She's still alive," he breaths, and slowly, looks up at his brother. He can tell his brother is feeling the same kind of relief. Amelia is alive.
"It's more than that," Alaric speaks up for the first time. Damon finds little in him to even look up. Amelia. Alive. A second chance. "Jonathan Gilbert is keeping her alive for a reason."
Damon looks at his brother. "The tomb vampires," Stefan says, coming to the same conclusion at the same time.
"But how can he know Amelia can lead him there?" Damon asks. So far, in his 150 years, Amelia is the only vampire he knows that can track other vampires, that can distinguish their scents as easily as she can human scents. And if Stefan or him don't know exactly how old she is, it's fairly certain Jonathan Gilbert doesn't know either.
"Unless he doesn't and he just figures she already knows where they are," Stefan continues. Maybe Jonathan Gilbert even believes Amelia is with them.
"Better question: is your uncle stupid enough to make that deal?" Damon asks, and looks at Elena urgently.
Elena had been following the conversation between Damon and Stefan closely, but she's not sure she understands how they can be so sure about everything. It's absolutely thrilling to see them playing off each other like this, like real brothers fighting for something together, but just twenty minutes ago she hadn't even known her uncle was part of the Council, or had any knowledge of vampires. "What deal?" she asks confused.
Stupidity must run in this family, Damon thinks, and rolls his eyes. "Why do you think we're still alive?" If Jonathan Gilbert knows about Amelia and the tomb vampires then it isn't a giant leap to assume that he knows about Stefan and Damon as well. And there has to be a reason why the Council hasn't stormed down their doors yet.
"Would Amelia do that?" Alaric asks, because really, is he supposed to believe she has that much love for Damon or Stefan? "Strike a deal with Jonathan?"
"To save this town?" Elena raises an eyebrow, and looks at Stefan.
Damon doesn't correct Elena; yes, Amelia is probably thinking about the town as well, but first and foremost she would have struck a deal to protect him and his brother. "Yeah, she would," he says. In Amelia's mind, that was a fair bargain, even if it cost her own life.
The last time he was here was for his brother's funeral; he can't say he's missed this town. He'll be the first one to admit that family is one of the most important things in life, one of the main reasons he found himself trusting Amelia all those years ago, but this small-town life was something his brother had chosen. It's not meant for him. Still, he has a duty to the family legacy now that he is one of the only male Gilberts left. As soon as Jeremy is old enough, or strong enough to know about it, he'll tell his nephew everything.
"John," Jenna says as soon as she opens the door and sees it's him. He can tell she's less than pleased to see him right now. "What are you doing here?" she asks, keeping the door half-closed.
"Nice to see you too, Jen," he smiles. "I'm only in town for business. Don't worry." He thinks she becomes more beautiful every time he sees her. Not that he'd ever tell her that.
"Maybe you should stay in a hotel," Jenna says.
"You forget that this house is still in the Gilbert name."
"In Jeremy's and Elena's name."
"Who are both still minors," he rebuffs, and stares at her hard. Jenna sighs and moves aside, reluctantly letting him in. He imagines she hates him for various reasons, not just because once upon a time they slept together and he'd left her high and dry. "Elena home?" he asks immediately.
"She's upstairs!" Jenna shouts from the kitchen.
Elena's home? John questions. Why? With Amelia supposedly dead he imagines the Salvatore brothers are in uproar, or even better yet, devastated. He knows Amelia created at least one of them, losing her must be painful no matter what kind of creature you were. He can't imagine Elena would leave Stefan alone at a time like this. He climbs the stairs slowly, leaving his suitcases downstairs.
"Looking for something?" he asks, as soon as he catches sight of Elena, digging through her room as if she's lost the most important thing in the world. What could she be looking for?
"J—" she starts, but corrects herself fast. "Uncle John." The creature in front of him smiles. This can't be Elena. But the resemblance – he'd never believed anyone when they said Katherine and Elena were identical. "What are you doing back in town?"
"Business," he answers, and puts his hands in his pockets, leaning against the door frame. Katherine turns her back on him and continues searching Elena's room. "I thought you'd be with Stefan." He looks at her closely. "Especially now that Amelia is dead." Soon as the words are out he sees Katherine stiffen in front of him, suddenly cautious.
Before he knows what's happening, she has him pinned back against the wall. "How did you know?" Katherine asks.
"Like I said. You're not with Stefan," he replies, keeping his calm. "Isobel warned me about you, Katherine." He knows Katherine sought out Isobel once; Isobel had chucked it up to genetic curiosity. He wonders if Katherine is here now for Elena too. That's something he can't let happen.
"Isobel," Katherine smiles slyly, seeming amused by the new development. Her hand coils around his neck, leaving him little room to breathe. "That little wench is in town?" she asks. "Or let me guess, she let you do her dirty work. Damon taught her well."
"Damon?" he chokes out. What does Damon have to do with this?
"Who do you think turned her?" Katherine whispers, and then, out of nowhere, Katherine is holding a knife. Jenna, he thinks instinctually, but the blade is already penetrating his abdomen. "Goodnight, John," is the last thing he hears before passing out on Elena's bedroom floor.
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next chapter: beyond redemption
