Epilogue

Back in the Cullens' new home, Carlisle was fuming. "I called one of Caius' retainers from the late Middle Ages. He knew the reach of of the other vampire species' mind control abilities full well and deliberately kept the information from me!" The rest of the family didn't respond. It was out of character for Carlisle to react so hotheadedly, so they went along with his knee-jerk reaction as if he were speaking with his usual cool yet compassionate insight out of habit.

Carlisle wanted a confrontation with the Volturi about Caius' lie of omission, and he got one.

Carlisle stood in front of Caius and the Volturi with his family inside of their new and beautiful house. Neither side had brought any of their supporters. They faced one another, and Caius spoke, "I could give you all another chance again to explain yourselves, but I've gotten fed up with your bullshit. This is the end of Carlisle-and-his-family-fucks-up-Caius'-immortal-life. Right now." He gestured to his fellow Volturi and they dispatched the entire Cullens family mercilessly. The Cullens' valiant efforts to save themselves were all in vain.

The guests gone and the Salvatore mansion quiet, the core group gathered in the main hall in front of the fireplace. They shared the personal revelations they'd had, and one by one paired off to make love. Caroline and Stefan were left by the fire, and there they said goodbye to their relationship. Bonnie and Nessie left together to give Nessie's room in the Salvatore mansion a proper sendoff.

Damon opened up Elena's tomb and lay next to her in her coffin. He pretended they were cuddled up tight in bed together, and was tormented with the falseness of his consolation. He kept up this macabre stasis until he couldn't stand it any longer. He slid Elena back into place, leaving both the coffin and its niche unsealed behind himself.

By the fire, Caroline lay Stefan down. They melted together for one final time, only to be jerked out of their reverie by the sound of the front door slamming shut. Klaus stood in the doorway looking on to them. For an instant, he was speechless with rage, but only for an instant. His handsome face was distorted into a horrible one by his emotion, and when he spoke, it was quaking with the effort of containing his desire to lash out.

"Caroline. I came to warn you and your friends off of upsetting my Rebekah over love lost and past, and find myself falling victim to the same pain you put my sister through. I love you Caroline. I can't stand for this dweeb to have his hands on you."

Klaus lunged and immediately tore Stefan's head off. Caroline screamed and Damon ran to the sound, only to be killed in the same fashion as his brother. Nessie rushed towards the noise from upstairs, and was caught unprepared in Klaus' murderous wrath. Unable to tolerate any retaliation for his actions, Klaus followed Nessie's footsteps upstairs to find Bonnie in the middle of casting a barrier spell to keep herself safe.

Unbeknownst to him in his rage-blinded state, Caroline had followed Klaus upstairs. She jumped in the way of his lethal blow aimed at Bonnie, expecting him to hold back his attack to preserve the object of his affection. Caroline was wrong in that assumption. The strike intended for Bonnie hit Caroline under her chin, sending her head improbably flying off. Further enraged by what his attack on Bonnie had cost him, Klaus finished his rampage by killing her with a vengeance. Klaus walked away; he would later come to regret overreacting the way he did, but far too late for anyone he had killed.

Elena came to inside of her coffin. She pushed open her niche and rolled herself out of it, like a corpse helping itself out of a coroner's refrigerated body drawer. She stood up, surprised to see the tomb so unchanged since she last saw it. How strange, it must be at least fifty years since I was laid to rest here, why does it still look the same? Damon must have occupied himself with its maintenance to excess. He was taking my absence hard. This must have helped him cope.

Elena smiled at the inscription on her plaque. So now I know what my new identity will be here in the future. I'm Regina Helen Taeda now. As she walked through the graveyard to the Salvatore mansion, it became increasingly apparent to Elena that very little time had elapsed since she had been sealed in her coffin. She got worried about what could have happened that Bonnie was dead so soon. I had such high hopes for her. I wanted to wake up decades in the future after Bonnie had died of old age in her nineties and attend her funeral with her numerous, happy grandchildren. What happened?

Elena's question was answered as soon as she arrived at the Salvatore mansion. She stepped in to see the carnage left behind by Klaus' massacre in the main hall. The sight of it filled her with unimaginable horror. Elena shrieked and fell to the ground, sobbing and tearing at her hair. Almost, but not completely, overwhelmed by the shock and horror she felt it still occurred to Elena that if she was awake after this massacre, then Bonnie was among the dead. Not seeing Bonnie anywhere nearby, Elena followed the trail of bloody footprints tracked by the killer past the body of a young woman she didn't know. Elena spared a moment of grief for her before continuing to follow the trail.

It led her to exactly what she was expecting. Elena found Bonnie upstairs at the end of the trail of blood, where the footprints turn around and return downstairs. Barely registering Caroline's nearby corpse, Elena fell on her best friend's body, uncontrollably shrieking in wordless grief. Elena was overcome with a frenzy of destructiveness. She tore out chunks of her own hair as she wailed herself into losing her voice.

After spending an interminable duration in this state of abject suffering, Elena reverted to herself when she was last overwhelmed by all the bad things that happened to her. Elena ransacked the house until she found what she needed: some gasoline and some matches. Elena splashed the gas around the Salvatore mansion and lit it up to burn away her overwhelming emotions. She stood in the middle of the main hall, feeling ready to die there and be consumed by the fire with her friends and lovers.

A stray tongue of flame licked the side of her face and took away her resolve in an instant. Elena ran trough the fire and out of the mansion. Outside, she noticed a blade hidden as if for use in an anticipated fight and turned it on herself, expecting a less painful death than by fire. However, she did not anticipate how bad at stabbing herself she would be, landing only a painful and draining wound, not a merciful death blow.

Elena wandered aimlessly after that, unable to bring herself to either go to the hospital or attempt to stab herself again. She found herself, quite unconsciously, going to Wickery Bridge. Exhausted, and under the effects of the shock of finding so many of her nearest and dearest massacred, the smoke inhalation and the blood loss, Elena gazed over the edge of the bridge.

She felt attracted to the surface of the water. This is where I should have died; with my parents and without all these years of supernatural danger behind me. I should have left my friends behind only to grieve me, and not to be dragged into my problems and be harmed themselves by them. Ever since that day, I've been a miasma, contaminating everyone I ever got close to me with the death I unfairly cheated.

"Here I am," Elena called to the water with all the meager strength she had left, "I've come to pay my debt." Elena cast herself off Wickery Bridge. She died in the water, like she would have without her connection to the Salvatore brothers.