a/n: Once again, thank you to everyone who took the time to review! I'm insanely happy with this chapter and love the ending. I've decided I've become obsessed with Katherine. I feel like I can't write a chapter anymore without including her in it. I also have the next chapter finished so hopefully I'll be able to post it tomorrow night. I hope you enjoy this chapter! And please remember to review!

Chapter Fourteen Endings

Put me inside flesh that is dying,
A ghost that wanders without rest,
Buried by desires and weakness,
I understand,
But please, don't take your love away from me.
-Don't Take Your Love Away by VAST

Damon walked down the vacant street toward the place he knew Sheriff Forbes would be. He strolled into the police station and quickly noticed how few people occupied the area. He only saw police officers on his way toward the sheriff's office. When he opened the door, Sheriff Forbes glanced up at him with a look of pure relief.

"Damon," she nodded as she offered him her hand. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

"You can't get rid of me that easily," he grinned. "I came here to see how bad the damage to the town was."

"Well," she shook her head as she sat back down. For a few seconds she shifted through the papers in front of her before she finally handed a folder to Damon. He took a seat and thumbed through the pages. "Those are the reports that have been filled. About half the town has moved away from this war zone. Of those remaining, about half are unaccounted for. I'm fairly certain it's safe to assume that those people are dead."

Damon nodded slowly. "What do you think is going on?"

"The large amount of drained bodies indicates vampires are involved," she spoke. "But vampires have never been this aggressive before. They seem bent on destroying this town."

"Have you spoken to the other Council members about this?"

"Which ones?" she laughed. "We're it Damon. And it's my job to try to keep peace between the remaining people in this town."

Leaning back in his chair, Damon frowned. "There are more creatures involved than just vampires."

"Like what?" she asked quickly as she edged forward. "What do you know?"

"There are werewolves involved in this too," he replied. "And maybe something else. Have you talked to Caroline recently?"

"No." She shook her head. "I want to keep her as far away from this as possible."

"She's involved in this Liz, whether or not you want her to be."

Sheriff Forbes let out a deep breath. "I take it you know something I don't."

"There is a small group of us who are preparing to fight against the vampires and werewolves. If you know anyone who wants to fight, we need to teach them to fight too."

"And is Caroline part of this group?"

"Yes," Damon nodded. "You know everyone who is connected to this group. The only problem is that there are too few of us. The enemy will take us out without hesitating."

"I'll volunteer my services," Liz replied as she moved from her chair and crossed her room. She used one of her many keys to unlock a small safe. Then, she pulled out two guns and several rounds of bullets.

"What are those?" Damon raised a perfect eyebrow.

"Silver bullets," Liz said as she handed one of the guns to Damon. "I feared something like this would happen. I wanted to be prepared."

"Now is the perfect time to be prepared," he replied. Then, he motioned back toward the work area outside the room. "Do you think your men will help?"

"Yes," she nodded. "They've been very helpful during this time. They're the only two men I have left."

Damon sighed at that. Finding an army was becoming even more difficult.

"Do you have any more secrets up your sleeve?" he finally asked.

"One," she replied. "But it's for my daughter. If we're going to die in this, there's something she needs to know first."

"She's been going through a lot lately."

"I feel like I'm to blame for most of that," Liz spoke slowly. "I've kept things from her that I should have told her a long time ago."

"Now is a perfect time to make things right."

"Then where is she?" Liz asked as she stood up. "The quicker I get this over with, the better it will be."

Damon glanced out the office's window and saw the sun linger on the horizon. Whatever Sheriff Forbes had to tell Caroline could wait. "She's safe at Bonnie's house, but we're not going there tonight. We need to get somewhere safe before the sun goes down."

"I know a good place to go," she replied as she crossed the room and opened the door. She had placed her gun in her holster and carried the extra clips in her hand. "We need to leave now if we're going to make it."

Damon stood up quickly and followed the sheriff out of the room. With Liz's confession that she had kept information from Caroline, a slight tinge of hope lay in Damon's body. Maybe they could finally figure out what was happening to Caroline and come up with some way to harness the power inside of her. Right now, they needed a miracle to win. Maybe Caroline would give them one.

Slowly, Elena walked down the stairs of Bonnie's house and into the room beyond. The living room was lit only by the light of the candles and it took her a few minutes to see the other person in the room. When he noticed her, she smiled weakly and walked toward him.

"How are you holding up?" Stefan asked as he embraced her.

When Elena pushed away from him, she shook her head. "I don't know Stefan. All of this is crazy. And I'm starting to feel like we're not going to be able to win."

"We will win," he made clear. "You need to have more faith."

"Maybe," she nodded. Then, she sighed. "Over the course of this past year, you've become one of my best friends Stefan. I'm lucky to have you in my life."

"I'm lucky to have you too."

"Don't say that," Elena grimaced as her blue eyes looked to him with resolve. "There are things I need to say."

He didn't look too happy. "Then go ahead."

"We've been through a lot," Elena spoke slowly. "We've had to deal with Damon, and Isobel, and now Katherine. And throughout all of this, we've changed."

"Of course we've changed," Stefan replied. "We've become stronger."

Elena nodded. "We have. But we've also changed in other ways too. You've become an amazing friend, and at one point, I fell in love with you."

"I love you too," Stefan said. "What are you getting at Elena?"

After a few moments of silence, she let out a deep breath. "You're not the person I fell in love with anymore. And I don't think I'm the person you fell in love with either."

"You still love me," Stefan said heatedly as he took a step toward Elena. "I know you still love me."

"I do love you Stefan," she replied. "But I'm not in love with you. And I'm sorry it took me this long to figure it out."

"So that's it?" Stefan snapped as he took another step toward her. "You're just going to break up with me and then run into Damon's arms?"

"This has nothing to do with Damon," Elena made clear. "We're breaking up because we're not in love with each other anymore. That's all this is."

"You're timing couldn't have been more impeccable," he replied sarcastically. "We could die Elena. Why worry about this now?"

"Because we can die," she said as she crossed her arms. "We shouldn't die pretending to be people we're not."

Stefan didn't respond to that. Instead, he walked away from Elena and grabbed the unpowered lamp from a table beside the couch. Then, he launched the lamp across the room. As it shattered into thousands of pieces, Elena winced and took a step away from Stefan.

"You said Katherine fed you. She gave you human blood, didn't she?" Elena asked.

"Of course she gave me human blood," he replied as he turned back to Elena. "She wanted me to be the strongest I could be. And she knew my weakness."

"This isn't you." Elena took another step away from Stefan and toward the love seat. Normally, she would have trusted Stefan to not hurt her, but now that he was hurting, she wasn't sure how he would act.

When she took another step away, he moved with inhuman speed and closed his hands around her neck. She tried to pull away, but his grip was too tight for her to move.

"This is me Elena," Stefan snapped. "Deal with it."

"If you love me like you say you do," Elena spoke slowly, "then let me go."

For a few moments, she saw anger flash behind his eyes. But then his anger subsided and his grip on her lessened.

"I'm so sorry Elena," he breathed. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I know," she nodded. "But this is a good example for why we don't need to be together. We both have things we need to figure out. We need to find ourselves again."

"And what if when we find ourselves, we realize we want to be together?"

"Then we'll be together." Then, Elena shook her head. "But I don't think we will Stefan. Our relationship was never what it was supposed to be. And I think deep down, you know that this was wrong too."

He shook his head. "We are meant to be together Elena. You'll see."

Elena offered him a weak smile, but didn't reply. After a few seconds, Stefan turned and walked away from the dark room. She couldn't come up with any comforting words to say so she just let him leave. And when he did, she felt the loneliness of the room smother her. She had never meant to end things with him tonight, but fate had had other plans. Now, she'd have to deal with the consequences. With only a short amount of time before the full moon, she needed to decide what she did want.

Since there was nothing else to do, she grabbed her diary and wrote by the light of the candles.

Katherine stood in the moonlight and watched the mayhem around her. About ten vampires stood in the street and drained their victims of their blood. Just before they killed their hosts, they infused the victims with their blood. The vampires snapped the humans' necks without hesitation. After a few moments of silence, the newly created vampires rose from the pavement and gazed around in wonder.

"You belong to me," Katherine said coldly as she walked through the vampires and examined them. "And I'm sure all of you are hungry now." She snapped her fingers and some more vampires appeared with humans. The humans struggled against their captors, but it was no use. There was no way for them to escape their deaths.

"These are my first present to you," Katherine spoke. "I hope you enjoy them."

The majority of the newly turned vampires didn't hesitate to attack the humans. They clawed with fingernails, and used their new fangs to draw blood. When the scent of the blood drifted up to their nostrils, they descended on their prey and fed.

"Katherine," a vampire known as Drew bowed as he approached her. "There is something we need to discuss."

"Can't it wait?" she smiled wickedly. "I love watching newborns feed."

"This is important," he replied. "We may need to change our battle strategy."

That was enough to get her attention. And if the problem was Drew's fault, he would pay for it. "What happened?"

"Your scene is obviously causing much attention to be brought to Mystic Falls," Drew spoke carefully as he took the time to pick his words. "There is talk that he's noticed and that he's coming here to interfere."

"Why would he do that?" Katherine snapped. "He promised me this town."

"Maybe he's changed his mind."

"He doesn't have the power to go against me," Katherine replied coldly. "He knows what will happen if he messes up my plans."

"He is much older than you Katherine, and much stronger. It might be wise to back down. We can take this town another time."

"No," she retorted. "This is our time to shine. He doesn't know about the werewolves. He won't be able to stop them."

"And you're sure they're on our side?" Drew questioned.

"If not, we'll kill them too," she shrugged. "I will not rest until the world bows to me."

"Then we need to continue building your army," Drew replied loyally. "We don't have much longer."

She nodded as she watched him walk away. Over the course of the year she'd known him, he had proven his allegiance on countless times. He served as the general for her ever-growing army and understood battle tactics amazingly well. He never lied to her and made sure to list all of the possible issues with each course of action they took. And it was that eye for detail that gave Katherine the confidence that they would win. They would give their enemy a chance to surrender before massacring anyone who stood against them. And when dead bodies filled the streets, the town would finally burn. Then, Katherine would have her revenge on the town that had tried to kill her all those years ago.

a/n: Please review!