Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
Darlin'
You give love a bad name

Lexi, Jess and I pumped our fists in the air as the iconic sounds of Jon Bon Jovi resonated through the house.

On the couch nearby Stefan was slouched leisurely drinking from the bottle of Bourbon in his hand as he too bopped along to the short guitar solo.

"Damon!" Stefan called out to his brother as the raven haired vampire sauntered into the room. "Help us celebrate my 17th High School Graduation!" Damon smiled at him before walking over to us and reaching for the remote for the sound system whilst grinding behind me to the epic music emitting from the hidden speakers.

"Hey, you remember my friend Lexi, of course?" Stefan smirked as Damon smile became slightly strained.

"Lexi, back from the dead. Goody." He said sarcastically before she sped over to him and pinned him to the wall by his throat.

"What's up, buzzkill?" She smirked as he choked.

"Stefan, you're just gonna sit there and let her enact her ghostly revenge?" He gasped out.

"You reap what you sow buddy." Stefan shrugged as he took another swig from his bottle.

"Charlotte?" He reached out to me this time.

"None of my business, sorry honey." I told him as Jess and I flopped down beside Stefan on the couch to watch Lexi.

"Let's be very clear: whatever time I have left here, I sure as hell don't plan on wasting on you. You got me?" Lexi asked him, annunciating her words very clearly.

"Yeah. Got ya."

Reluctantly she pulled her hand away from his neck and crossed the room to grab the bottle out of Stefan's hands and take a gulp from her perch on the arm of the sofa.

"So if you and Jess are all flesh-like and real-seeming, that means something went horribly wrong when Bonnie tried to put that veil up. And here you four are; having dance party USA." I rolled my eyes at Damon and his attempt to ruin the party.

"You're right. How selfish of us to be indulging in these precious moments with our formerly dead best friend. We should be sacrificing our own happiness for the good of others, right? I should be upstairs grooming my hero-hair." Stefan retorted dryly as he gestured to the four of us on the couch.

"Yeah, c'mon Damon; dance with us." I said as I got up and draped myself over him.

"Are you drunk?" He spat as he checked my eyes to see if they were bloodshot or glassy.

"I don't know, Mom, are we?" Stefan laughed as I poked my tongue out at the angry vampire before returning to the sofa and putting my arm around Jess.

He rolled his eyes before snatching the bottle off Lexi who was about to pass it to me.

"Okay." She sighed at the loss of alcohol.

"Well, I guess that's one way to celebrate our supernatural apocalypse." He brightened up before drinking from our stolen bottle. "Now, care to hazard any guesses on what the hell went wrong?"

"Aliens." Jess told him seriously before falling into fits of giggles.

Oh!
Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name

"Mm. Oh, my god." I laughed at Jess as she moaned through a mouthful of ice-cream.

"No cookie-dough on the Other Side, huh?" Elena asked as we were all congregated around the Salvatore's dining table.

"You have no idea how much I've missed this. And this." She said as she held up a glass of Coca-Cola.

"Too true." Jeremy said as they clinked glasses before diving back into their food.

"I'm telling you; I smell chicken." I heard Ric tell Damon just as they entered the dining room. "Told you!" He exclaimed as he set his eyes upon Jeremy's grease coated meal and plucked a piece of meat from the plate.

Whilst Alaric was distracted I watched Elena wrap her hands around the bottle of Bourbon the former hunter had just carried into the room and had set down on the end of the table.

"No, hey. Hey!" Alaric shouted just as she took a long swig.

"She just got her humanity back. Let her live a little." Damon defended her.

"Oh, so she can party?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant." He said quickly as I moved away from him as he tried to wrap his arms around me.

"Ooh, someone's in trouble." Jess sing-songed as everyone laughed at Damon's pout.

"Hey, you wish." Elena said to her brother as he too tried to take a drink of Bourbon.

"I'm dead…what are they gonna do, throw me in juvie?" He asked sarcastically.

"Well, at least you'd have a place to live." Alaric joked.

"You both suck!" Elena exclaimed as she threw her fries at them whilst laughing.

"Hey! Now there it is; that smile. I wasn't sure we were gonna see that again." I said smiling at her.

"I did some pretty terrible things." She mumbled as her smile turned sad.

"Hey, no. No tears. If Caroline was right, we only have until tonight. We need a no-crying rule." Jess told her earnestly before smiling at me.

"But the crying's good; it means that I'm finally feeling something, and right now I..." she glanced between her brother and Ric who she was finally letting back into her life. "…I feel happy."

A hush fell over the table as smiles were exchanged. I watched as Lexi rested her head on Stef's shoulder and Jess embraced her ice-cream pot.

"I love you." I heard Damon whisper into my hair as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. From our place stood in the corner of the room we watched as friendships and families were re-built.

"I love you too." I smiled as I gazed upon our small family sitting right before us.

A sharp ringing sound broke the silence.

"Sorry." Elena mumbled as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. "It's the Grill; it must be Matt." She told us as she answered and placed the phone on speaker. "Hey, you went AWOL this morning…what happened?"

"Hello, Elena." A voce very different from Matt's filled the room. "It's your dead friend, Connor. You remember me?"

I left the group to deal with Connor who was still speaking to them on the phone to answer the door.

"You know, not many people actually knock." I said as I opened the door. "Vaughn?" I asked shocked as the hunter grinned back at me before lifting his arm and firing a bullet into my shoulder.

I felt the wood pierce my skin as the force knocked me back and left me gripping the hefty door for support.

"Got a little message for you, missy; straight from the mouth of the witch Qetsiyah."

I groaned as I pulled the bullet out of my shoulder from my place on the floor.

"Yeah, borrowed it from my jarhead friend, Connor. Shoots wood like lead." He smirked as he admired the gun in his hands.

I heard the pounding of feet on the wooden flooring of the Boarding House as Damon raced to find the source of the gunshot.

"C'mon Vaughn, I didn't kill you."

"No, but you're boyfriend left me in that well on that island, where I starved to death. There I was, all alone on the Other Side, till Qetsiyah found me and reminded me of my supernatural destiny; to cure Silas, and then kill Silas. End of story-"

He was cut off by a hand plunging into his back. I lifted my gaze from the slumped hunter bleeding out on the floor to see a frowning Damon clutching his bloody heart in his fist.

"Where are the others?" I asked Damon as he helped me up.

"Ric and Jess went to the Grill to deal with Connor, Elena's in the Library with Jeremy and Stefan and Lexi are raiding the drinks cupboard." He told me as I clutched my still aching shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked as my face screwed up in an effort to block the pain.

"Yeah, just need some blood." I told him and he nodded before racing down to the cellar and bringing me back a blood-bag. "Thanks." I said as I ripped the top off and drank hungrily from it. "I'm gonna go get changed." I told him as I placed the empty bag in his hands before pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Hey." I turned to see Damon entering his room behind me.

"Hey." I responded as I rubbed my shoulder through my clean top.

"How are you feeling?" He asked as he stood behind me, both of us looking into his huge mirror.

"Better." I lied as another wave of pain hit me.

"Good." He took my shoulders lightly and turned me to face him. "Because now I can give you your Graduation present." He told me before he turned to retrieve it from its hiding place.

"I'm not graduating." I said slowly as I watched him.

"Whatever." He shrugged as he approached me with the object in his hands which were hidden behind his back. "Here…" He presented me with an open necklace box that now contained the small vial we'd been searching months for.

"Damon, I can't take that." I said as I watched the crimson liquid swirl around inside it.

"Sure you can. Looks like it might be cherry-flavored." He smiled at me as he took it out of the box and held it out to me.

"Damon, I can't." His face fell. "God, I want to take it so much but I can't…there's one dose and I'm not being human without you." I told him as I closed his hand around the vial to keep it out of sight.

"It's for you." He said as our eyes locked. "I'm not pouring it down your throat; I just want you to have it because I know that you'll give it to whoever deserves it most." He placed it in my hand before taking my face in his and holding me close.

"That's a lot of responsibility." I laughed into his shirt. "And the hunters have made it pretty clear that they're willing to kill everyone in Mystic Falls until they get it." He pulled back from me and held my shoulders instead; I ignored the pain rushing through my left one.

"I'm not letting anything happen to you Char." He said darkly. "I'd die first."

I let his words rush over me before I reached behind him and placed the vial on his bedside table before grabbing his shirt and pulling his lips down to crash upon mine.

As our assault on each-others lips continued I felt Damon ease me down onto his soft mattress. Soon his hands reached my shoulders and as they applied slight pressure to push me down further I felt a hiss escape my mouth as I pushed him off me.

"What the-" He asked dazed from his place on the floor as I clutched my shoulder. "Charlotte?!"

"Hmmm?" I responded as the pain died down.

"What was that?" He asked standing up.

"Nothing." I told him as I too stood and moved away from him.

"Take off your shirt."

"There are children in this house." I attempted to joke.

"Fine." He shrugged and I let out a sigh of relief, sure he was going to let it drop.

However, as soon as I dropped my hand from my shoulder I found myself being wrestled back onto the bed and a hand trying to reveal my shoulder.

I tried to claw him away from me but each time I raised my arm another stab of pain flooded through me. Noting this he used it to his advantage and the next time I tried to push him away he seized my arm with one hand and pulled down my collar with the other to reveal my un-healed bullet wound.

"Why isn't this healed?" He asked me, panting from our fight.

"Because the bullet was laced with werewolf venom, okay?" I told him.

"What going on- Oh wow sorry." Elena said as she entered the room with Stefan hot on her heels.

"Oh please, I've walked in on worse." Stefan told her as he gestured to our position on the bed; Damon straddling me with our hair and clothes disheveled.

"She's got werewolf venom in her." Damon told his brother, not bothering to get off me. "We need Klaus; we need his blood."

"He's a thousand miles away sipping Hurricanes on Bourbon Street." I reminded him as I pushed him off me using my good arm.

"That wound will kill you!" Elena exclaimed as I adjusted the collar on my top.

"What about the cure?" Jeremy asked from behind Stefan.

"Jeremy's right. If you're human, the werewolf venom won't hurt you." Elena beamed as she spoke. "You'll be fine then."

"No." I said stubbornly. "Sounds like Vaughn's awake." I told them as I feigned listening to downstairs before pushing through the little group by the door.

"Charlotte!" Damon growled as he followed me downstairs.

"Here." I tossed the cure I'd swiped from the bedside table to the now awake Vaughn who was being guarded by Lexi.

"What are you doing?!" Damon shouted as he entered the room behind me.

"Digging up Silas." I told him and his brother who rejoined us. "You coming, Vaughn, or not?" I shouted behind me as I shrugged on my leather jacket, trying not to wince as I jostled my shoulder.

The hunter smirked at Damon before getting up and bolting out the door behind me.

I led Vaughn through a labyrinth of trees until we came to a cliff overlooking the Quarry lake.

"Here we are!" I gestured to the vast pool of water below us.

"What is it?" The hunter asked cautiously.

"It's where Damon dumped Silas; closed off to hikers, no food for animals, endlessly deep water." I told him as I smirked. "Not gonna be a problem I hope."

"I'm not following you, where exactly did he put the body?" He narrowed his eyes at me as I shrugged.

"Well assuming he dropped him from here," I turned to face the pool. "He should be about…hmmm…what's that thing in Physics? Distance equals velocity times time? Oh gosh I hate Physics. Guess I should have told you to bring a swimsuit, huh?" I smirked at the irritated man.

I sat on a rock as Vaughn peered over the side of the cliff and into the water below.

"What's wrong? Can't swim?" I laughed at the paling face of the hunter as he pointed his gun at me.

I watched as he turned around about to retort when his eyes went wide.

"The hell happened to you?" He asked, gesturing with his gun to the side of my neck.

"Oh. Well, would you look at that? That is nasty." I said as I looked down and saw my wound creeping up my throat.

"Connor…" He laughed as I scowled at him. "…He must've laced these bullets with werewolf venom."

"Not as dumb as I thought you were." I mumbled as I pulled up the collar of my jacket to try and cover the wound.

A gun-shot filled the woods around us as I clutched my now bleeding thigh and fell to a kneeling position on the floor.

"This was all a lie, eh? You knew you were a dead woman." He pulled the cure out of his pocket and waved it in front of my face. "Well, you don't get this back. Where'd you put Silas?"

I smirked at the hunter, fully knowing that Damon hadn't yet buried Silas. His response was to shoot me in my chest. Clutching my newest bullet hole I realised I had run out of hands to hold the blood in with.

"One more jolt of werewolf toxin, and you'll be dead within minutes." He chuckled darkly as I screwed my eyes closed. "WHERE'S SILAS?" He shouted and I shook my head at him before slowly opening my eyes.

"Dunno." I smiled weakly as I spoke and watched as his gun's aim moved from my heart to my head. I sighed as his finger danced over the trigger and lowered my head ready to drop at any moment.

Instead of a final gun-shot I heard the sickening crack of a neck.

Raising my head I saw Damon and Jess standing over Vaughn's body with a villainous smile on her lips. With deft movements she lifted him and flung him into the depths of the water he previously though Silas inhabited.

"Oops." She shrugged.

"One slight problem." I told her weakly as Damon pushed my hair behind my ears whilst helping me sit.

"You mean this?" She asked as she tossed the cure from hand to hand.

"Yes. That." I said as I let out a deep breath and leant against my vampire.

"I would love nothing more than to get her to you but she won't take the cure." Jess told Stefan over the phone as I rested against the rock I'd previously sat on.

"Okay, just hang on a little longer. Caroline's calling Klaus again." He told us as I nestled further into Damon's shoulder.

"Stefan, we are past the point of Hail Mary phone calls! What do you want me to do, stand here and watch her die, or force-feed her the cure?!" she shouted at him. "STEFAN?!" She shouted again when no answer came.

"He's here." We heard him tell her after a long silence.

With the promise of salvation I was moved from the Quarry to the Boarding House in lightning speed.

"You look a little worse for wear love." I smiled at Klaus as he entered Damon's room.

"Not all of us can just jet off on holiday." I joked with him as I lay propped up on Damon's bed.

This feels like Déjà vu." He laughed as he remembered the last time I'd been infected.

"Always my savior." I rolled my eyes. "I heard you decapitated a hybrid using a graduation hat." I said as he bled into the glass beside me.

"Gotta make an entrance luv, it's the first rule." He laughed as his wrist healed before passing me the glass. "Drink up."

I nodded before downing the crimson liquid in one and re-placing the glass onto the table beside me.

"Thank you."

"Anytime luv." He smiled before kissing my forehead. "You and I both know I'll always heal you."

"Ah yes, but we also know that I'm not the blonde vampire you are currently in love with…" I laughed as he looked away from me. "Care's a wonderful girl Nik, she'll come around. You might not be her first love, but I'm sure you'll be her last."

"I intend to be…however long it takes."

"What the hell took you so long?!" Jess marched into the room whilst shouting at Klaus.

"I had a way to come." He told her, his jaw tightening.

"She was dying!" She retorted. "If you had been any longer…" she railed off as her eyes filled with tears.

I watched as the Nik I knew came back to us as he stood and embraced a sobbing Jess in his arms.

"As if I'd let that happen." He joked as she cried into him.

I smiled as I watched them interact and as I felt Klaus' blood work its magic inside me. I slid down the neck of top to see my wound heal.

"I'm sorry." I heard him whisper into Jess' hair.

"Me too." She mumbled into him.

"I…I…" She stepped away from him and silenced him by placing a finger on his lips.

"Make Caroline happy; she's one hell of a girl and deserves happiness." She told him. "If I can't have you and Char's taken, then I don't see why she can't have a stab at you." With that she pressed a kiss to his cheek and left the room.

"She's still a firecracker, isn't she." He laughed.

"You were her epic love." I told him as I got up off the bed. "And you killed her, do the same to Caroline and I'll kill you." I warned him.

With a smile he took my hand and pressed a kiss to it.

"Good luck for the future Miss Edwards." With a wink and a final smile he sped out of the house.

"All sorted in here?" Damon asked as he entered the room.

"Yeah." I said as I sat back down on the edge of the bed. "Wait, what's the time?!"

"Uhhh." Damon glanced around for a clock as I sprung up off the bed.

"We have a Graduation to go to!"

After getting dressed in record time and nearly forgetting the tickets, Damon and I trekked across the Mystic Falls High School football pitch to find our seats.

"Welcome parents, family, and friends. What a beautiful day for a graduation. Thank you for joining us today on this special day, as we celebrate our graduates. So let's get started." Damon and in interlaced our hands as the Mayor began calling out names.

"I can't believe I finally get to see him graduate!" I almost squealed as children made their way across the stage. "Have you got the camera?" Damon pulled the small camera out of his blazer's pocket and waved it at me. "Good."

With that we settled in to watch our little group graduate;

"Um, not to play favorites, but I am especially proud of this next graduate, my lovely daughter: Bonnie Bennett!" We applauded the young witch as she crossed the stage and hugged her dad.

"…Matt Donovan….Caroline Forbes; congratulations." I clapped and snapped photos of Care and Matt as they too crossed the stage.

"…Elena Gilbert; congratulations." Damon and I shared a smile as I snapped a picture of the girl who we weren't sure would make it this far.

"…Stefan Salvatore; congratulations." I cheered on the younger Salvatore while Damon whistled at him before taking various photos of the clearly embarrassed vampire.

We watched as he received his diploma before facing the crowd and pumping it in his fist above his head.

The ceremony continued until the Mayor gave his final speech and a flurry of red motor-boards filled the sky before raining down on the newly graduated students.

Damon, Stefan, Elena, Ric and I made our way back to the Boarding House where Stefan and Elena were embraced by Lexi, Jess and Jeremy.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" they chorused as they handed out glasses of champagne.

"To Stefan and Elena!" I toasted.

"TO STEFAN AND ELENA!" The words filled the room closely followed by the clinking of glasses.

"Stefan, can I, um... can I have a moment?" Elena mumbled.

"Uhhh…yeah…sure." They placed their glasses on a nearby table and made to leave the room to have a heart to heart.

"Stef," I caught his arm before he left. "Here." I pressed the small vial into his hand.

"What are you-?"

"Get the girl." I told him before he smiled at me and left to join Elena.

"Ooh, I smell a reunion." Jess laughed as we watched them leave.

"Here's hoping." Jer added. "I mean; no offence Damon but you two were horrible together." We laughed at Jer's words.

"Too true." I smiled.

"Where are we going?" I asked as Damon led me through the many rooms of the Boarding House before we came to a stop in one with a fire burning in the fireplace.

"I wanted to apologise."

"For what?" I asked, noting his serious face.

"For almost letting you die." I rolled my eyes at him.

"But I didn't."

"But you could have." He insisted. "And, for everything else that I've ever done that hurt you."

"That's a long list…"

"I know but, I'm sorry."

"Damon, what is this all about? I love you for who are and for everything you've ever done to me. It's those things that make me love you more." I told him earnestly. "You are sarcastic, arrogant, pig-headed, kind, caring and wonderful." I told him. "And I love you for it all."

"But you know what I really am? Selfish, because I make bad choices that hurt you. I would rather have died than see you become human and have a family and grow old without me. And I was so happy when you refused to take it because I knew you wanted to spend your eternity picking up my messes."

He smiled at me.

"I'd rather die right now than spend a handful of years with you, only to lose you when you're too old and sick and miserable and I'm still me. I'd rather die right now than spend my final moments without you and remembering and how happy I was, because that's who I am, Char, and I'm not gonna change and I'm so thankful to have you back in my life, to have found you after so long apart, after pushing you aside for over 100 years but fully knowing that the woman I should be chasing was right beside me as my wing-woman. And there's no apology in the world that encompasses all the reasons that I'm wrong for you."

I felt my mouth slack as I watched him get down on one knee and pull a velvet box out of his back pocket and push it open to reveal the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen.

"So I hope you'll let me spend eternity making it up to you." I felt my eyes fill with tears. "Charlotte Edwards, will you marry me?"

"You've been a terrible person, you've made all the wrong choices, and of all the choices that I've made this will prove to be the worst one; but I am not sorry that I'm in love with you, that I love you, Damon. And that I will for eternity; of course I'll marry you."

I watched a smile break out on his face as he stood and scooped me up into his arms before placing me back on the floor and sliding my new diamond ring onto my left hand.

"Stefan?" Damon and I walked outside the house to see Stef loading Silas' body into the back of the car.

"Hey." He greeted us with a huge smile on his face. "How's it going Mrs Salvatore?" I smiled at the younger brother before propelling myself into his arms and accepting his congratulations.

"Congrats." He said to Damon as I re-joined my fiancée and felt his arm wind around my waist. "She's a keeper." He laughed.

"How'd it go with Elena?" I asked him.

"Well, we're not together yet but we're taking it slow." I smiled at Stef.

"Looks we're finally getting our happy endings, huh?"

"Happy ending? With him? You sure Char?" I laughed as Damon rolled his eyes at his brother.

"So this is it, huh?" Jess said as we strolled through the Salvatore gardens in the light of the full-moon.

"This is it." I sighed.

"I can't believe you're engaged!" She laughed as I admired the ring on my left hand for the millionth time that night.

"Me neither." I said. "Hey what colour should my bridesmaid dresses be?" I asked as I looked up from my ring to get her opinion only to find I was alone in the garden.

"Bye Jess." I whispered into the still air of the night before wrapping my arms around myself and returning to the house.

"The house is finally quiet." Damon sighed as we collapsed onto his bed.

"Thank God!" I laughed.

"So…what now?" he asked as he lifted my hand to look at the ring.

"Now we have our eternally ever after." I told him with a smile.

We've got each other and that's a lot
For love - we'll give it a shot

A.N. Hello everyone, I can't believe that this is it! The end of series 4! I hope you all like the way I've ended it 3 and of course I hope you like the Bon Jovi lyrics, (the last two lines are from Livin' On A Prayer).

I'd like to thank all my loyal followers, and reviewers who never fail to put a smile on my face.

Lately, I've been getting reviews from a guest called Nicole, I wanna thank you Nicole for you lovely reviews which are longer than most but a joy to read and of course to those of you who constantly review; SomebodyWhoCares, XXTakaraXX and MsRose91. You kept me writing. Thank you for your support and your confidence in me and my writing.

To those of you who supported me through my exams I hope you'll be glad to here that I passed with mostly A's and even an A*! and to those of you who stuck by me even when I hadn't updated in ages, Thank you.

Thank you all.

Bye xx