Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. If I did, a freaking awesome kiss would have been just the beginning...and Alaric wouldn't have died!
A/N: I know.
I could rant about how RL is a bitch theese days (it is) and how it doesn't leave me any time to focus on writing (it doesn't), but I guess it doesn't help. So I just settle on apologizing for the delay. Again.
Thank you so much for all those reviews and favs and follows; with everything going on in my life it's the only thing keeping me writing at all.
And thank you for being patient with my take on the characters (um...yeah, on Elena, mainly). I'm trying to stay true to the characters how they are established in the show (luckily just until 3#14!), just nudging them (her!) a little bit in the 'right' direction, but it obviously takes a little time...bear with me.
I hope all the East-Coasters among you are okay...
Here it goes...
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Chapter 14
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In the late morning hours in Mystic Falls, two things happen nearly simultaneously.
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In the outskirts, at the boarding house, Gale knocks on Abby's door, balancing a tray with coffee and pancakes in her hand. When she doesn't receive an answer, she knocks two more times, each time louder than before. When she is still met with silence, the quiet sense of foreboding turns into certainty that something is seriously wrong, and she determinedly opens the door without further ado.
One look suffices, and she knows that her intuition didn't fool her.
Abby's bed is used but empty, and so is the rest of the room; yet, there is no evidence to see that she fled. Her bag is still on the chair, a glance into the closet reveals her clothes, and the dresser is jam-packed with herbs.
Gale knows enough about Abby to be sure that she would never leave without her herbs. Many of them are rare and hard to come by, and it's practically the only way she is still capable of doing magic at all. She would never leave them behind; not if she had the chance to take them with her.
That allows just one conclusion, and Gale turns on her heals and dashes through the hallway.
She takes two stairs at a time and storms into the parlor, slightly out of breath and panic in her face.
Three vampires' heads jerk toward her, and Kol jumps up from the couch he was sitting on.
Three pairs of eyes watch her appalled.
They know something happened, but no one is prepared for this.
"Abby must have been kidnapped!"
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At the same time, in the center of the town, Klaus gets out of the car and blurs over to the driver's side to open the door for Caroline. He offers her his hand to help her out, but she ignores it. (He thinks that it's almost a ritual by now.) The hint of a grin makes his lips twitch briefly before he straightens up and closes the door behind her.
"So…" he says.
"So…" she repeats, and not for the first time she feels a nervous flutter in her belly. She points to the old building she has parked the car in front of. "Here it is. This is where we brought her."
He looks surprised. "The old City Jail? And no one knows about the special vampire torture cell down there? Seriously, this town is weird."
"Tell me about it," Caroline mutters while walking around to the back of the car to open the trunk. She takes out a bag filled with food and water for Esther. Klaus watches her pensively.
"I hope you didn't bring anything too tasty. We have to keep her alive, nothing more." His eyes are blazing with fury for a moment, as always when he thinks of his mother.
Caroline can't hide a grin. "Nope; just stale bread and water. I wasn't feeling any do-gooder's vibes, I guess."
He grins back, the fury blown away as fast as it rose. He takes the bag from her, lifts it up to his nose to sniff in it. "Yes," he grins, "this doesn't smell tasty at all. Good girl."
Their eyes meet, and for a second there Caroline feels this connection she doesn't want to feel. She turns around abruptly and walks over to the jail. She opens the door and enters, sensing him following her. They cross the hallway, and at the other side she opens the hidden door that is leading down to the dungeon.
"This way," she says, letting him pass her.
He nods. "You better wait outside."
"You don't have to tell me twice," she mumbles before she retreats and leaves the house, and he grins again. They decided for a reason to let Klaus go to the witch to bring her the supplies; he's the only one who seems to be strong enough to resist her magic, and they can't have her witchy woo wooing anyone to stage a jail break.
Caroline doesn't expect him to stay longer than necessary, but she's baffled when he shows up only seconds after her leaving him. She reels back at the sight of him; his face is contorted in rage. He grabs her by her shoulders, hard enough that it would have hurt her if she wasn't a vampire. "Who else knows about this place?" he hisses, barely containing himself.
"What? Why? Only you and Elijah, and of course Stefan and me." She struggles to get free. "What's going on, Klaus?"
"When I opened the latch, I found the cell empty," he fumes.
"What?" Caroline's eyes widen in fear, and she stops struggling. Klaus lets her go, almost shoves her away, and she sees the muscles underneath his temples ticking.
"Yes, you heard right." Pure hatred resonates in his voice, and for the first time in a long time Caroline remembers why they all used to be afraid of him. "Mother's gone!"
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They appear at the boarding house like a blizzard. Klaus is all violent and icy. He didn't bother to take the car; he knew he was faster vamp-speeding there anyway. Caroline blurred after him, silently begging for the ability to somehow hold him back, to prevent him from doing the others any harm, but she can't reach him; not with her voice nor with her calming hand. He storms through the front door and brushes past Stefan, directly sweeping into the parlor, where the others instinctively take in defensive stances.
"Where is she?" he yells, merely having entered the room.
Elijah, composed as ever, raises one brow in mild astonishment. "How do you know?"
In a flash, Klaus has him pinned against the next wall. "Where is she?" he repeats growling, but Elijah isn't one of the Salvatores. He snatches his younger brother's arm and hurls him aside like a rag doll, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket.
"Pull yourself together." The slight strain in his voice is the only sign giving away his anger. "What do you know about Abby's disappearance?"
Klaus stares at him, and the shock at these words achieves what nothing else could – he calms down a bit. "The Bennet witch disappeared, too?" he asks, jumping to his feet again. "When?"
Stefan, who had been watching them silently, steps closer now. "What do you mean, 'too'? Who else disappeared?"
Klaus turns toward him and then looks the others over. It doesn't take long for him to add two plus two; he rolls his eyes and a moan escapes his throat, and walking over to the window, observing the driveway as if Abby could be hiding somewhere he asserts, "Fantastic. She had help."
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The air of calm frustration momentarily surrounding Klaus turns out to be just the vessel for something a lot more explosive. The very next moment he turns around, blurs to the piece of furniture closest to him which happens to be a wing chair, lifts it up and throws it across the room with a cry of rage. Kol ducks down just in time, bringing Gale down with him and burying her underneath him, and instead of crushing against their heads the chair lands in a book shelf, bursts into pieces and produces a rain of loose pages from books ripped apart at the impact.
The endangering of Gale's life, the only person Kol ever really cared about, has him in the same rage as his brother within a split second, and in a blink he's over Klaus and flings him against the wall. The hybrid leaps up and pounces on his brother, pushes him against the nearest book shelf with his hands at his throat, ignoring Kol's hands doing the same to him. Their faces only inches apart, neither of them cares about the others' shouting to stop either, until suddenly both let each other go, clutching their heads instead and bending forward; Kol sinking to his knees after a moment, Klaus rather irritated than pained.
"Knock it off! Both of you!"
It's Gale's voice, unusually sharp and authoritative, that drives them apart, restricting themselves to shooting visual daggers at each other when the headache the witch gave them ceases.
"This isn't helpful," Elijah supports her, stepping beside the witch standing in the middle of the room now, "we have more important things to take care of." He turns toward Klaus. "I take it Mother somehow escaped. What about the ashes, Niklaus? Did you hide them as I told you to?"
His focus still on his youngest brother, Klaus narrows his eyes to small slits. "No, I haven't. It's pretty convenient to have them at my disposal in case I need them." When Kol doesn't take the bait and just smirks, Klaus heaves a dramatic sigh. "Of course I expected the Original Bitch to be locked away safely. Who knew that even a house full of vampires wouldn't be able to keep one little out-of-order witch under control?" He straightens a little and strolls over to the liquor table. Without hesitation he grabs the bottle of Damon's best bourbon, pours himself two fingers into a tumbler and downs it in one gulp. (It's almost as if he wants to poke Damon a little, even though he's absent, knowing fully well that it's a dick move to gulp this stuff down without savoring it the least bit.) He sets the glass back on the table, throws a scornful glance around to no one in particular and turns toward the front door. "I guess I have to go home and hide it now, although I doubt that she dares to come back into my house. I bet she knows that I won't be talked out of ending her pathetic life once more."
A satisfied grin flickers in his eyes when he sees Caroline jump to her feet, propelled up by his casually spoken words; he still knows how to pull her strings.
"I'm coming with you," she blurts out before she can think twice about it and follows the hybrid. She freezes when she suddenly realizes what she's doing. She feels Stefan's eyes on her and turns around to meet his disapproving gaze. 'It's Bonnie,' she mouths. (She tries hard to convince herself.)
But Klaus, for now, spares her the necessity to explain herself. He's not in the mood to take the risk to be pussy whipped by this girl again. (And he's embarrassing certain that he would let it happen again.) "No, thanks. I can handle myself," he says, and then the door shuts behind him.
Caroline stares after him, not aware of the glances she draws on herself; what she is aware of though is the mushy mass somewhere inside her that is supposed to be her feelings.
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They hike for hours.
There's no path they can follow, they have to bushwhack their way through the woods. Sometimes it's easy to walk, mostly it's not. Their feet sink into the deep layers of last years' rotten leaves, thorny brush hooks its claws into their legs and branches hit them in their faces as if they were angry at them for crossing through.
Elena doesn't complain once, but Damon knows that it's getting harder for her with each passing hour. He doesn't know whether it's the aftermath of Esther's spell, the herb's effect already begins to cease (the very thought of it makes his heart sink into his boots, pissed or not) or if she's simply tiring because she's only human, just faster due to the recent events. Either way, he tries to make it as easy for her as possible, holding branches out of her way, choosing ways that seem to be the easiest to walk on, but he sees her getting weaker as time passes by. Of course he offers to carry her, not just once, but as expected she plainly refuses.
Just when he decided to have a break, to sit down and give her time to recover a little, they break through the edge of a particularly dense part of the woods, and the view unexpectedly appearing in front of them takes their breath away.
They are standing at the fringe of a clearing that almost completely consists of a small lake, more of a pond actually, partly embedded by jagged cliffs they hadn't anticipated to be here; steeply rising walls growing out of nowhere. The lake is filled with crystal clear water, fed by a waterfall coming down from high above them. It's not really one of the mightiest downfalls either of them had ever seen; it's no racing current, roaring, violently rushing down a gaping abyss. It is rather comparable to the soft flow of an old faucet, so soft that it's murmuring over the stony walls, falling freely down the last yards due to a ledge, bubbling and gurgling into the lake. It seems almost magic; even the softest wind blow scatters the stream; and maybe it's just the angle the afternoon sun rays are hitting the clearing, but the tiny water droplets glisten and twinkle all over the opening like fairy dust, spraying the fern and small bushes growing on the wall around it with fresh, light green.
They both stand completely still for a long moment, marveling in the beauty of it; only their eyes wander to take it all in.
"Wow," Elena eventually breaks the silence, "I forgot."
Damon has an inkling, still he asks, "About what?"
Elena inhales deeply, trying to catch the magic of the place. "You know, with all the craziness around us I forgot about the beauty the world still has to offer; to normal people, anyway."
He turns his head and watches her, and suddenly his heart aches at what he sees. Not because she looks sad, but because she doesn't. She seems to be resigned to the fact that this is her life now, crappy as hell and mostly without the barest hint of beauty in it, instead full of violence and blood and death. Guilt boils up in him; this is his fault, his and Stefan's. If they hadn't come to Mystic Falls, she would have lived a normal life. She would have recovered from her parent's death, found a normal guy to love, built a normal life. White picket fence and all that. He sighs.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, but she only looks at him slightly surprised. When it dawns on her what he's sorry for, she shakes her head. "Don't be. It's not your fault."
He chuckles humorlessly. "The hell it isn't. If it hadn't been for Stefan and me…"
She cuts him short. "I'm the doppelganger. They would have come for me anyway, only that I'd be dead right now if you two hadn't been there. The only one who is to blame is Klaus, and I'm not even sure about that anymore."
"What?" Damon furrows his brows, bemused at these words. "Where did you get that idea from?"
She gazes at the shimmery droplets and after a while shrugs her shoulders. Then, as a signal to follow her, she nods her head toward a rock a few yards aside that nature conveniently formed almost like a stony bench and moves over to settle on it. He sits down beside her, still trying to process what she said.
"You're not having second thoughts about killing Klaus, are you?" he asks, his voice somewhat reproachful about having even to ask about that. "I mean, Elijah I got, what with his weird sense of moral. But Klaus? Elena, he killed Jenna and you without blinking, and look what he did to Stefan. He also would've killed Barbie and her wolf…"
"You're one to talk." She glares at him now; the thought of him wanting to kill one of her best friends, twice even, disturbs her, as always when it pops up in her mind. Not to mention the moment he did kill her little brother. Mostly she manages to forget about it, because so much has changed since back then. He has changed so much, and she trusts him with her life; still…If it comes down to you and the witch again, I will gladly let Bonnie die…so much has changed, but not this. He still doesn't value life as much as she does, except hers and Stefan's and maybe Ric's; and she just can't understand that. Sure, he would always protect and save her friends and family, what little was left of it, but he would do it mainly for her. Not because he felt the need to.
She sees his eyes changing at her accusation, sees the feelings shift from anger to defiance to hurt, until he finally succeeds in putting up his mask again. (It's almost funny how the king of charades is an open book to her.)
"Really? That's what you're doing? Comparing me to the devil?" he asks, and he manages to hide away his hurt, to sound incredulous and even a little pissed.
"Just saying; you're not exactly innocent, Damon." Elena holds his gaze, and then she sighs. "But… no, I'm not. Not really, and you know that; and I don't have second thoughts. I want him dead; it's just…according to Rebekah he wasn't a monster when he was human, and it's not his fault that he became a vampire. So, is he really to blame for everything he did? You know, I used to see the world in black and white, but with everything that happened…" She shakes her head and eventually lowers her gaze, away from him. "Turns out there are only shades of grey."
He swallows; he knows exactly what changed her view of things. He was the one dissolving the black, and then Stefan robbed her of the white. And again he feels sorry; this time however he doesn't say a word. It feels like if he said something, he would push her to absolve them, and he doesn't think either of them deserves it.
She grabs a small pebble from the ground and turns it round and around between her fingers. "You know, you were right back then."
He narrows his eyes for a split second, and then he cocks his head and cracks a grin. "I know. I'm always."
Elena just rolls her eyes, and sighing he lets it drop. "About what?"
"I did try to turn you into Stefan."
Now he raises his brows a little, but doesn't move otherwise; he waits.
She keeps fidgeting with the pebble, and he can tell that she is not as self-confident as she usually is. "I thought I had it all figured out, that whole vampire thing." She snorts. "I was wrong. You know, there was Stefan, who chose to quit drinking human blood and acting like a vampire in general; I saw Caroline, who apparently had no qualms at all to stay the same Caroline she always had been, even a better one, stronger and more self-assured; they both were mostly, you know, kinda…normal people with a special diet. And whatever you were when we met in the beginning, at one point it didn't count anymore, because you, too changed into that kind of person. Because you chose to, just like them."
Damon slightly shifts in unease, slowly getting an idea where she is headed, but she doesn't seem to notice. "So, obviously it was choice defining which kind of vampire one wanted to be. It was so easy to see it this way, and it was perfect for me because it felt…safe." She pauses, collecting her thoughts; she lifts her arm over her head and throws the stone into the lake. They both silently watch the growing rings in the water where the pebble landed.
When she goes on, her voice has an edge of bitterness. "And then everything went to hell. The one who once took control over his bloodlust was suddenly completely off the rails, despite his choice. And what he did…" She shakes her head violently to get rid of those thoughts. "I wanted so desperately believe, that it was all …you know, sort of an accident, an illness, curable; that it wasn't part of what it means to be a vampire. And I still could hold onto my view of things; because of you. What you did all those months…" She falls silent for a few seconds, and he doesn't dare to interrupt her thoughts. It's rare that she is so open, and he never before heard her talking about this; and he feels that she is on to something and that it's something important.
She swallows, hard. "But then you snapped Ric's neck, and attacked Bill Forbes…dammit, Damon, in my book you were supposed to feel differently after you chose to change. But you still…freaking enjoyed it. Just like Stefan did." She turns her head to look at him, and he can't detect the reproach he expected in her face, instead he sees agony in her eyes. (He knows it's the agony of comprehending.) "How can a good person like you enjoy inflicting pain and death on people? How does that work? I don't get that."
He watches her silently for a moment; he feels sorry for her, he really does, because he can see and hear how desperate she is. For a while another feeling is stronger though, and it's the shitty little feeling of I-told-you-so… I'm still a vampire…Repeatedly he had tried to make her accept that they were different, but she always had simply refused. Now she is finally beginning to allow herself to deal with his reality, and he understands that it scares her. The world that she built in her head crumbled around her, and she doesn't know how to deal with it because she doesn't understand what is left.
He lifts his hand and, shooting the no-touch policy to hell, brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "That's because I'm not a good person, Elena," he says softly.
She gets angry immediately. "Yes, you are," she hisses, "despite everything you want to make us believe. That's why I don't understand…"
"It's not just a matter of choice. This isn't something we can choose to feel or not to feel," he cuts her short, pulling his hand away from her. "It's an instinct. You can choose to fight it, but no matter how much we don't want to feel the thirst for blood and the need to kill, the instinct will always be there. And it's a pleasure to satisfy the instinctive needs." He sees in her face how it torments her. She really wants to understand them; then again she wants so badly keep up her view of them being the good people she needs them to be. (He can also see that she already knows that she lost both fights.) He can't comfort her with this, so he goes with the harsh truth. "You're right, you'll never understand it."
"Then make me!" she suddenly yells at him, punching her fist against his upper arm in the feeble attempt to make him do something she knows is impossible.
He snatches her wrist amidst the movement and holds it in a steely grip. "I can't, Elena, and you know it. There's just one way to find out how vampires…" He trails off, frowning. A thought crosses his mind, and he's not able to dismiss it instantly. "Unless…" He murmurs before cutting himself off.
"What?" Elena watches him attentively, then trying to squirm free. "What, Damon?"
There is a way to make her understand, part of it at least…but he knows she would never let him do that. Determinedly he shoves the idea aside, steering the conversation back to an earlier point. "But we're all fighting. And we are pretty good at it, don't you think? Well, Barbie and I are…" He sees her shoulders sagging slightly, and this is what suddenly spurs the decision to tell her what his brother wouldn't have wanted him to tell. (A part of him tries to hold him back, because he knows what the outcome for himself will be.) He just can't bear her desperation any longer, and everything that gives her hope helps to keep her alive. "…and Stefan is on his way back."
Her head snaps up and her eyes lock with his. "What are you saying, Damon?" she whispers, and he kicks himself mentally when he thinks to see a shade of joy cautiously sneaking into her gaze. Still, she deserves to know, and Stefan deserves it, too.
"Stefan's back on Bambi blood, Elena. Your white knight is waiting in the wings. And against all odds, it's within your lifetime."
He sees the tears she fought to hold them back falling freely now. As so often, he is torn; hope was what he wanted to give her, and he's relieved about having achieved that. But to see her crying happy tears for his brother is still too much. He gives her a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes, hoping that it doesn't give away how he really feels, and leans back, bracing his elbows on the rock behind his back, staring over the lake again.
He doesn't want to see her now, he can't.
Had he taken a closer look, maybe he would have seen that, although she is relieved about Stefan's decision, the tears she's crying are not happy tears at all.