Chapter 14

"I can feel it all… everything." Katherine whispered. She was sitting in the boarding house living room, Elena sat beside her, Damon and Alaric sat opposite and Bonnie and Caroline had excused themselves and gone home.

Katherine looked lost, her eyes were far away; Elena touched her arm, pulling her back to reality.

"You don't have to be that person anymore, you can be good now, like Damon." Elena said quietly. Damon flicked his eyes to hers before looking away.

"You don't understand Elena, I can't be good; it's not in me."

"Maybe it is, I mean when Damon first came to town he was pretty much psycho… now he's just an ass." Ric chimed in.

Damon rolled his eyes.

"Thanks Ric." He said sarcastically, he looked at Katherine.

"Look, back in 1864 when I knew you, you were pretty much a bitch. But I saw flickers of humanity, mostly when you were with Stefan, but they were there."

Katherine and Elena both flinched at the mention of the younger Salvatore. But Elena gave Damon a dazzling smile in thanks for his observation.

"I think Elena and I, both would rather you two not take a trip down memory lane right now. How about we get to the point?" Alaric earned a glare from Katherine and a grateful smile from Elena.

"And what point is that exactly?" Katherine asked.

"What we are going to do with you." Alaric shot back.

"You've kidnapped Elena twice in the past week. In my book that deems you unforgiveable." Damon said with a hint of venom in his voice.

Elena sighed and turned to her doppelganger.

"What do you want to do?" she asked quietly.

Katherine looked at Elena in surprise.

"Why are you being so nice to me? I've nearly killed you, on several occasions."

Elena looked down.

"I can feel that there's a part of you that wants to change, if I can help make you a better person, then I want to do that."

Katherine nodded and Damon looked at Elena with a slightly exasperated but fond expression.

"I'm going to go and see Stefan… I need to figure some stuff out." Katherine said.

Elena smiled, and Katherine looked at her almost softly.

"I wanted to warn you about the feelings that you might feel because of me, but I think you can handle it. You're strong Elena, you're a survivor." She laughed slightly. "Which is good because if you die, I die." She said with a smirk.

Elena giggled and Damon flinched.

"Try not to get staked… It hurts like hell!" Elena said.

Damon frowned.

"Well, it's sorted then. Normally I would tell you that if you made me regret not locking you up for good I'd kill you. With this whole Elena thing, we both know I wouldn't … so just try not to fuck up." Damon said to Katherine. "And don't you dare die." He added.

Elena smiled and surprising everyone in the room, hugged her doppelganger. Katherine hugged her back for a moment before awkwardly pulling away and slipping out the door. Elena sighed and lent back against the sofa. Alaric got up and said his goodbyes.

Once they were alone, Damon sat next to Elena and curled his arm around her waist. She burrowed her face into his chest and smiled as she felt him kiss her hair.

"I love you." She murmured.

"I love you too." He said and tightened his grip on her.

"But you've got to be more careful with your life Elena. I can't lose you, ok."

She nodded.

"I'm sorry I worried you." She reached up and kissed him. He smiled against her lips.

"I like this apology." He said with a smirk. Elena rolled her eyes, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Damon brought his lips back to hers and kissed her tenderly. It was different to their other kisses, it was soft and gentle and full of love. When they broke apart, they curled up together and watched the fire, completely content in their comfortable silence.

Bonnie was carefully flicking through the grimoire she knew that she could just kill Elena with a normal weapon, but somehow it felt too personal. She though that if she used a spell she would feel less connected to her death. She just had to wait for a time when Damon left her alone. That was going to be the tricky part; those two were almost inseparable now… If worst came to worst she could incapacitate Damon and then kill her. She loved hurting the disgusting bloodsucker anyway so it would work out well.

Bonnie felt a gust of wind at the back of her neck and whirled around to see Alecus standing by her bedroom window. He was watching her carefully.

"Bonnie Bennet, you are running out of time."

Bonnie shivered.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm going to do it as soon as possible."

Alecus shook his head slowly, before cocking it to the side in a very sinister gesture.

"Do it tonight."

"What? But I…"

"Tonight Miss Bennet."

His words rung with finality and then suddenly he was gone. Bonnie sank down on her bed. She had to end her best friends' life tonight. She memorized the spell she was going to use and grabbed her keys; she drove to the boarding house slowly. She was pretty sure Elena was still there. She only hoped that the others had gone, she had no qualms about hurting Damon but she didn't want Alaric or Caroline to get in the way.

She parked her car outside and walked slowly toward the door. Her heart was racing in her chest and she briefly wondered if Damon could hear it. The door was unlocked so she let herself in and walked toward the sitting room where she heard voices.

Damon and Elena were curled up together on the sofa, Damon was stroking lazy circles on her back and Elena was resting her head in the crook of his neck. They looked like every other normal happy couple. Bonnie briefly wondered when they had become a couple, but decided she didn't care. It just made it easier to kill Elena, she was with a monster; she had lost sight of good and evil.

"Hello Sabrina." Damon didn't turn around but Elena jumped and looked over his shoulder.

"Bonnie, what are you doing here?" She shifted slightly to put a bit more space between her and Damon.

Bonnie walked further into the room. She stood in front of Damon and Elena.

"Elena, I'm sorry. I truly am sorry, but I have to do this." She whispered.

Damon looked at her suspiciously, he started to get up but then fell straight back down, completely frozen. Elena moved to him, and clutched his face in her hands.

"What did you do to him?" She yelled

Bonnie sighed.

"He's fine, he is just completely incapacitated. He can still see and hear and it will wear off in a few hours." She said calmly.

Elena stroked his cheek, before rounding angrily on her friend.

"What are you doing? Undo it!"

Bonnie shook her head.

"I'm sorry Elena." She fixed Elena with her eyes and she fell to the floor.

"Bonnie…What?" Elena asked, every part of her body was hurting, she felt as if she were imploding.

"Bonnie." She screamed.

Bonnie didn't move, she just kept her eyes fixed on Elena's writing body on the ground.

Damon couldn't move; he couldn't do anything he couldn't save her. He struggled with all his power to move but he couldn't even twitch a finger. He watched helplessly as Elena yelled in agony, he felt his heart breaking.

Elena's struggles grew less and less, her body giving into the pressure. She was dying. She looked up at Damon's still form and gazed into his frantic eyes. She gave him a weak smiled and tried to focus on his face, she wanted him to be the last thing she saw.

"I love you." She mouthed.

Damon was screaming inside the prison that was his own body. She couldn't die, not Elena, his Elena.

Elena closed her eyes and slipped into the darkness.