A/N: Thank you SO MUCH for your fantastic reviews! :):):)
It's been almost a month since the last update, so I'll keep this A/N short. Good news, bad news, awesome news and news you-will-just-have-to-deal-with are all coming up in the next A/N, though ;)
Chapter 29
Dreams, dark and tiring like nightmares in disguise, made Elena wake up in the middle of the night with stinging tears in her eyes.
The sky was colorless, rays of pale light beginning to crawl over the bed. Elena's gaze was following each line on Damon's face with intensity of a touch. She didn't want to wake him up, didn't want him to worry that instead of sleeping she'd been watching him for most of the night. He was real. They were real, everything that had happened to them, everything they had was so real that she couldn't stand the thought that they soon might become merely a story in their child's life.
What use there would be to tell their child that they always survived if they didn't? What use there would be to tell their child that they always found their way back to each other if they let some evil spell tear them apart before he or she was even born?
Soundlessly inching her face closer to Damon's, Elena interlaced her fingers with his more tightly and closed her eyes. But instead of letting sleep overcome her and let her mind meander, she focused on visualizing their future the way she wanted it to be.
They'd get out of here. They'd go back home. They were going to survive. Their child was going to survive. Damon was going to live.
Drawing a sharp breath Elena imagined the three- four- five! of them sitting on the carpet in their home one day, in front of the fireplace, the Christmas tree tall and bright, Elena holding an infant in her arms, Damon and Denver putting together a train track and Atlanta climbing over the couch, asking to hear the time-travel story again.
Elena opened her eyes, lifting her hand to Damon's face when he shifted in his sleep. She ran her fingers through his hair and lowered her head onto the pillow. Smiling faintly, she brushed the backs of her fingers across Damon's cheek and then tucked her hand under her head.
Damon grimaced and growled under his breath in protest.
Elena stifled a chuckle, quickly lifting her hand back to his face and snuggling into his chest when he gathered her into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
xxxdelenaxxx
"But why it is a loop spell?" Jenna asked, shifting her eyes between Shane and a diagram he'd drawn on a large piece of paper Jeremy was holding up with amazing amount of patience.
"Because this spell was designed as an escape spell," Shane went to explain again, undeterred by being repeatedly asked the same questions and by the skeptical attitude of at least several people in the room. "And as an escape spell, it was meant to be considered irreversible, that's why the spell itself doesn't contain any indication that it can be reversed."
Jenna sighed, the barely containable boundless excitement in Shane's voice making her question his credentials at first, but the more she listened to him the more she was certain that even if he wasn't exactly sane, he was definitely knowledgeable and seemed sincere in his enthusiasm.
"And yet you did figure it out," Grayson pointed out skeptically.
He wished to believe the man's every word, but one thing he learned listening about all the things that had happened to Elena and her friends during the last few years was that no venture that relied on magic ever went very smoothly.
"Dad, I'm sure Bonnie would be happy to explain just how much of an expert Shane is, but maybe we should move on to other things," Jeremy said, glancing at Grayson from behind the diagram.
Bonnie narrowed her eyes at Jeremy, exchanging a look with Shane who snorted under his breath.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I got so far is that there's still nothing we can do about all this," Alaric said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Well, that's the point of a loop spell," Shane said, still exhibiting no trace of annoyance in his voice whatsoever. "It reverses itself. If it was possible to reverse it from the outside, so to speak, it'd become a threat to the people using it. The only way to keep this spell safe from being controlled by others, was to make it immune to any form of control."
"I guess what Ric's asking is whether we know how this spell is going to reverse itself?" Isobel interjected, watching Shane with a pensive expression on her face.
His attitude was reminding her about how she'd felt at the beginning of her studies. She'd felt like she'd finally discovered her life's purpose, like there were things in the world worth discovering, like it was possible to be happy. But she'd lost that sense of purpose somewhere along the way and she found it beyond curious that he apparently managed to keep it, despite everything that she'd heard had happened to him.
"Exactly," Alaric confirmed and Jenna's eyes flickered between him and Isobel when they glanced at each other.
Their interactions seems casual enough, but Jenna wasn't sure if this interpretation wasn't mostly dictated by her wishful thinking.
"No way to tell," Shane replied with disarming openness, extending his arms in a hopeless gesture.
"What do you mean?" Miranda asked with a worried frown.
"I'm sorry, so what's the point to all these doodles?" John asked, pointing to the diagram.
"John," Miranda gave him a mildly scolding look, considering it probably unwise and certainly rude to talk this way to someone who was obviously trying to help.
"I was trying to explain how the loop spell works," Shane said simply, which only seemed to fuel John's irritation.
"Like Shane already mentioned, a loop spell includes a reversal trigger," Bonnie decided to interfere, talking a step closer toward everyone. "The trigger's not on our side. It's on Damon and Elena's side. They have to... do something to trigger the reversal. They probably can't do it consciously," she added quickly, noticing that John was about to interrupt her.
"Certainly not consciously," Shane corrected matter-of-factly.
"You do realize how this sounds?" Enzo muttered, giving Shane a stern look. "What if whatever might trigger the reversal never happens?"
Shane's mouth twitched into a brief smile. "I'd have a little more faith in them."
Lily's eyes shifted to Desmond who straightened up in his seat, having been listening to the entire presentation in complete silence so far.
"They have to prove that their reasons for using the spell are valid," Desmond said suddenly in a low, pensive voice, his words drawing everyone's attention.
He looked up at Shane who to everyone's confusion nodded, his eyes smiling. "Simple rules of alchemy, eh?"
"Could someone elaborate for those slower on the uptake?" Jenna asked wryly.
Shane gave her a quick smile. "As you know, the spell was designed for witches and vampires who were in love, but couldn't be together, because no coven would approve of that. The time-travel spell was supposed to allow them to be together, however the time-travel part was nothing but a disguise." Shane said, scanning the room with his eyes narrow, his voice so energetic that it made Lily understand why Desmond was listening to him so intently.
There was hope emanating from the man's voice, hope that Desmond needed. That everyone needed. Lily gritted her teeth. That she needed.
"Traveling back in time and staying there would unravel the past," Shane continued, gesticulating, "and witches who created that spell weren't rebels who wanted to go against the basic rule of balance. They just wanted to be happy. So in keeping with all the rules, the time-travel was not supposed to last." He looked around the room and added, squinting. "It was a test meant to prove to their covens that their love was worth their approval. And the proof of that, was that they would come back."
"I can't decide if this sounds like a vicious circle kind of thing or just plain nonsense," John grunted, glancing at his brother.
Grayson looked conflicted, watching Shane with a deep frown on his face.
"Are you trying to say that they come back if they love each other enough?" Miranda asked incredulously.
"Witches are a complicated lot," Shane said, glancing at Bonnie and then looking away as if he was searching for the right words. "Loving someone too much and loving someone right are sometimes two different things and all covens are always most concerned with what's right."
"Either way, I don't think that's the part we have to worry about," Stefan observed gloomily, looking up.
Lily and Desmond looked at Stefan who had also been very quiet during Shane's numerous speeches.
Stefan exchanged a grim look with Bonnie, who seemed to understand that he felt that asking too many questions right now was pointless anyway, because it seemed that either way everything was going to end in a tragedy.
"If they don't come back, their child will die. And if they do come back, Damon will," Bonnie murmured somberly.
But before the bleak silence filled the room, Rebekah's voice startled everyone.
"Not necessarily," she said, stepping into the room from the dark hallway where she'd been standing for a while now, unnoticed. Stefan's eyes darted to her and she smirked, smoothing our her bright pink dress in a lazy gesture. "Funny that Caroline hasn't mentioned Elijah's little plan to you yet. Looks like her loyalties don't lie with you lot. Interesting," she added with another smile, shifting her eyes to Stefan who looked anything but amused.
"What are you talking about?" Jeremy asked, giving Rebekah a questioning look.
"This awkward moment when we're all going to be on the same side." Rebekah flashed a grin at everyone. "Apparently, it's happening right now."
xxxdelenaxxx
"Would you like me to pass something to you?" Stefan asked after a few moments of watching Damon turning the knife in his hand over and over and over again, his eyes fixed on an empty breakfast plate in front of him.
Elena glanced at Damon whose eyes turned to Stefan.
"Since you're asking." Damon raised his hand with the knife. "Could you get me a wooden one?"
"Damon!..." Elena whispered, widening her eyes at him.
She could see out of the corner of her eye Katherine's mouth twitch, a glimpse of angry bewilderment flashing in her eyes.
Ever since she'd heard about their stupid stunt with saving Emily, Katherine felt that something was going on. The way they looked at her seemed to change overnight. There was something different about their behavior, especially Damon's.
First of all, she actually didn't expect him to resist her revelations concerning Elena with such unwavering stamina, but she quickly discarded that as a manifestation of weakness. Apparently, the fool was really in love with that dull doppelganger and consequently blind to any reasonable arguments, so Katherine expected him act a little hostile toward her from now on, but thought it'd make compelling him all the more fun. However, all of a sudden, he started acting completely hostile, not a trace of his earlier sheepishness visible in his eyes or his voice and that along with his not very subtle vampire references this morning made her worry that perhaps he discovered the truth about her, which wasn't going to work to her advantage at all. Perhaps she'd have to arrange for him to die before taking Elena to Klaus. What an annoying inconvenience.
"Excuse me?" Stefan asked, perplexed by the request that apart from making Katherine narrow her eyes at Damon also made Giuseppe dart his eyes from Damon to Katherine with a frown on his face.
"Damon was only joking," Elena said in reconciliatory tone, wiggling the knife out of Damon's hand and putting it next to her plate.
Damon gave her a mockingly upset look, so she reached out for a piece of bread, spread some butter over it and with a perfectly serious expression on her face fed it to him.
Squinting and chewing obediently, Damon mimicked her gestures and after preparing a similar sandwich inched it to Elena's face.
Stefan seemed amused by the scene, but Katherine's smile was clearly strained.
"May I serve tea now?" Hazel asked, walking up to the table.
"Do we have vervain tea?" Damon asked and Hazel seemed a little stumped by the question, but before she had a chance to answer it, Damon added, shifting his eyes to Katherine. "It's delicious. You should try it."
Elena blinked rapidly, trying to kick Damon under the table, but he quickly moved his legs and she accidentally kicked Stefan instead, hard enough to make him wince.
Giuseppe cleared his throat, growing irritated by everyone's behavior. He wondered how Damon knew about the vervain? And why he was offering it to Katherine? Wrinkling his forehead in a frown, he started wondering if it was possible he'd missed the obvious. Strangers in town were always bad news. Perhaps he should've been more suspicious from the start.
"Is it?" Katherine asked with an artificial smile, her eyes burning with rage and confusion and Elena was sure it wasn't a good sign the rage seemed decidedly more prominent.
"Vervain tea?" Stefan asked innocently. "I've never heard of it." He wanted to continue this train of thought, but a surprisingly resolute, silencing look from Elena stopped him.
Above all, Elena was impatient for the breakfast to be over, so they could talk to Emily before leaving the house. That and she doubted riling up Katherine was a good idea at all.
"If we are to go, let's go," Elena said, jumping to her feet.
She was feeling a little guilty for leaving Giuseppe alone with Katherine, since Stefan was also going with them, but she hoped that coming up with a way to ruin the wedding ceremony might be a more attractive pastime for Katherine than hurting Giuseppe. Fortunately, Katherine had no way of knowing that Elena couldn't care less for wrong colors and faded flowers during her wedding.
Elena paused in her thoughts, her eyelashes fluttering briefly at the sudden memory of the empty wedding hall, so beautiful and bright, decorated with flowers and ribbons, such a perfect setting for what was to become one of her precious memories, that moment when Damon had told her he was going to take the cure. For them.
"Elena, you haven't eaten almost anything," Damon said and Elena stifled a smile at the sincere concern in his voice.
"We have to go," Elena insisted, doubting that skipping one meal could hurt the baby. "I know you're a smothering type, but now it's not the time for this to get even worse," she said, grabbing his hand.
"What? Me? Smothering type?" Damon protested.
"I can make you a sandwich," Stefan offered and wasn't sure why Elena seemed amused by his offer.
"Great idea, sandwich master. You do that," Damon said, tapping Stefan on the shoulder on his way around the table. "We'll meet you outside," he added, heading for the door with Elena's hand clasped in his.
"We didn't ask for the permission to leave the table," Elena whispered to Damon, suddenly realizing that she didn't even glance at Giuseppe after rising to her feet, but Damon brushed off her concerns and headed out of the dining room. "I think we should've-"
Elena wanted to continue, but as soon as the door to the dining room closed behind them, she found herself trapped against the wall, Damon's lips crashing onto hers.
"Even if we'd have all the time in the world I would never be choosing politeness over this," he whispered against Elena's lips, cupping her cheek in his hand. "Now let's go talk to Vintage Bonnie."
With a faint smile, Elena wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.
xxxdelenaxxx
"You're going to Seattle? Why?" Jeremy asked with a weak smile, trying not to get his hopes up too high because of the mere fact that Sarah was calling him.
There could be many reasons for that, her courteous promise to do so as plausible as the hopeful thought that maybe she missed him as much as he missed her.
Everyone had given him odd looks when he'd rushed out of the room, clutching his phone in his hand as if that was the most important thing in the world right now and not the shocking news that Rebekah had just shared with them. But it was an impulse. When he'd seen the caller's ID, all of a sudden, the only thought in his head was that he wanted to hear Sarah's voice.
"I don't know. I wanted to go somewhere far, somewhere I've never been before. But now that we're half-way through... It's been a good road trip so far. And I know it's only been a couple of days but I feel like I got to know my parents really well."
"That's great."
"Yeah, but... I-"
Jeremy held his breath.
"I'm calling because I need to tell you something. I don't want you to think I did it because I don't trust you. I was just worried that something may come up and if someone would decide to kill him, then my parents would die to."
"Kill whom?" Jeremy asked with a baffled frown, surprised by the turn their conversation seemed to take. "Sarah, what are you talking about?"
Sarah was silent for a few seconds. The way she drew her breath reminded Jeremy of those moments during their vampire hunters' training when she'd be so focused on the task, look so calm and collected that only those occasional intakes of breath would let him know she was nervous.
"I'm the one who stole Kai's body."
Jeremy's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What? Stole... Kai's body? Why? When?" Jeremy interrupted himself, rubbing his eyes and trying to understand what Sarah was saying.
"You didn't even notice his body was gone?" Sarah asked a little stunned, struck by the thought, a hint of amusement lighting up her otherwise grim voice.
Jeremy snorted humorlessly. "I don't think anyone felt like checking up on Kai's body lately. After we threw him into a cellar, we assumed the subject was closed."
"After everything you've been through, it's amazing your peace of mind can override expecting all kinds of unpleasant surprises around every corner," Sarah said with a trace of disbelief in her voice and then waited for Jeremy's reply, but he said nothing for a few seconds. "Jeremy?"
"I was just thinking that my sister thought me that. Always hope for the best, not expect the worst. I guess it stuck with me through all these years, through all the deaths and other disasters."
Leaning against the wall Jeremy was certain he could hear Sarah smile.
"That's the best thing, really," she said softly. "The best course of action, the only one that always makes sense."
"Are you coming back?" Jeremy suddenly asked and Sarah fell silent.
"I'm calling because I wanted to tell you what happened and why I did it."
"But you're not coming back."
"I didn't say that," Sarah said, but not immediately enough.
Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shake off the disappointment. "Just be careful. I'll let you know if something happens that could make Kai wake up."
"What?" Sarah exclaimed, her attention diverted from the previous thought. "What do you mean wake up?"
"If all magic was gone, I guess that'd also mean that Kai would wake up. But don't worry," Jeremy continued before Sarah had a chance to ask what he meant by mentioning the possibility of all magic being gone. "Even if he does wake up, he'll wake up as a human with no magic, so all you'll need to is punch him in the face the way you punched me during our first boxing drill."
Sarah smiled.
xxxdelenaxxx
"Stefan." Liz welcomed him with a smile, taking a step away from the door to let him in.
"Is Klaus here?" Stefan asked after returning Liz' greeting, the question adding a hint of awkwardness to both of their smiles.
Liz sighed and gestured toward the kitchen.
"Ah. Stefan! I'm getting a vague sense of déjà vu," Klaus said with a smirk, glancing at Freya and Caroline when Stefan entered the kitchen, hands in his pockets and a frown on his face.
"Bonnie already called and I was going to tell you what was going on," Caroline said, rising to her feet with a defensive grimace.
Stefan watched her walk to the fridge and wasn't sure why her just casually getting skim milk out of it seemed like the strangest sight to him right now.
Then again maybe it was just him always having a hard time getting used to life twists. Although he was quite certain that it also must've taken Liz some time to process the sight of Klaus eating breakfast in her kitchen.
"Before or after Damon would die?" Stefan deadpanned.
Caroline huffed in exasperation. "They didn't even come back yet!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air after placing the milk at the table.
"A loop spell," Freya interjected to change the angle of the conversation a little. "I've only ever heard of it. It's pretty impressive that professor managed to spot it. If he goes back to teaching, I may sign up for his class."
"Someone's definitely not feeling like the weight of the world is crushing down on him," Rebekah said with a sigh, appearing in the doorway and scanning the table with a smile.
"Are you following me?" Stefan asked with an exaggerated grimace, glancing at her over his shoulder.
"Boo!" Rebekah whispered, widening her eyes at him and then grinning when Stefan returned her smile, if only with his eyes.
"Rebekah! I see this is a very thorough family reunion," Klaus said, reaching for a muffin. "Should I thank Elijah for that? Although I can't help but notice that you all seem able to immediately gather in one place only when a chance for a mutiny presents itself."
"You never disappoint when it comes to being dramatic. Or high-and-mighty for that matter," Rebekah scoffed, stepping to stand next to Stefan. "Hello Freya," she added, giving her sister a genuinely happy smile that she returned.
"And I can't help but notice I didn't get a smile," Klaus observed matter-of-factly, his eyes shifting between peanut butter and jam.
"I didn't come here to be smiling at you, Nik," Rebekah said wryly.
Klaus smiled. "I know. You came here as a devil's advocate," he said, glancing up at Stefan.
"You're the only devil in this house and I don't think anyone even wants to be your advocate," Rebekah retorted. "Maybe it's time to capitulate."
Subconsciously, Stefan's gaze shifted to Caroline.
She huffed in indignation. "For the record, I think that tabula rasa spell is a great idea! I already told him so!" She pointed to Klaus who seemed very amused by the entire conversation.
Without saying a word, Stefan shrugged, as if signaling he never meant to suggest he believed otherwise.
"Hope may come down any minute, so you might want to keep your voices down," Liz cut in, crossing the kitchen with a half-scolding, half-amused expression on her face that made Stefan feel more secure in his belief that Klaus could be persuaded to go along with their plan.
Something in Liz' demeanor made it seem as if she wasn't worried about the outcome to all this at all. She gave him a reassuring smile before leaving the kitchen.
"Stefan, just so you know, I don't feel like going to Tennessee this year," Klaus said conversationally in a low voice, giving Stefan an apologetic grimace and then chuckling under his breath while spreading peanut butter over his sandwich.
"I'm glad that after all these years the fact that you ruined my life still serves as a source of amusement to you," Stefan said with an artificially strained smile.
Klaus shook his head, stifling a laugh. "And you say I'm being dramatic!" He turned his head to look at Rebekah before shifting his eyes back to Stefan. "I thought we were all past that," he said with a wave of his hand. "After all, everyone ended up happy. Damon's got Elena, you've got... well, a few epistolary friends, I'm sure."
"You're not funny, Nik," Rebekah said with a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest.
"To be fair, he kind of is, but that's beside the point," Stefan said dismissively, causing Freya and Caroline to exchange stifled smiles.
Klaus narrowed his eyes at Stefan and after a moment of consideration put his sandwich down on his plate. "I just wish you listened to my side of things instead of only paying attention to my brother's idealistic reveries!"
"Your side of things," Rebekah echoed mockingly, "is just a paranoid conviction that becoming human will mark your downfall!"
"Our downfall, my dear Rebekah," Klaus interrupted, raising his hands in an impatient gesture. "It amazes me that Elijah's conscientious vision has somehow made you all blind to the simplest fact that me being defenseless will be a disadvantage to all of you."
Rebekah snorted out loud. "Of course! Because all you've been doing your whole life is saving the day and rushing to our rescue all the time. I feel so terrible for having obviously missed the moment when you became an on-call savior! Could you please enlighten me when did that happen?"
"He did help out a couple of times," Stefan allowed noncommittally and Caroline sat down and focused on drinking her coffee to keep herself from laughing.
Wordlessly, Klaus pointed to Stefan with a triumphant expression on his face.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Freya asked, looking between Rebekah and Stefan.
"I don't think coffee is enough to make me endure this conversation!" Rebekah said, shooting Klaus an impatient glare and then directing a genuine smile at Freya. "But I'll give it a shot. Thank you." She pulled out a chair for herself and sat down at the table across from Klaus.
"Here's a thought," Klaus said cheerfully after a moment of silence. "Why don't we go back to this conversation once Damon and Elena will actually return? Chances are, they never will."
"How thoughtful of you to point that out," Freya said, shaking her head in wry amusement.
"Damon was already dying when they left," Stefan replied in a voice immediately devoid of amusement, his eyebrows furrowed. "That's why they left so abruptly. When they come back, with Kai's curse in place, Damon won't have more than a few minutes. There won't be time for any conversations."
"In an effort to offer you a piece of advice," Klaus spoke in a concerned tone, "when did saving your brother ever do you any good? Maybe you should reconsider always rushing to his aid, no matter the cost."
"That is a terrific advice," Rebekah said. "I think I'm going to go ahead and apply it to myself. I probably should have, the first time you daggered me."
Klaus rolled his eyes.
"Stop trying to make it about Damon," Rebekah continued, giving Klaus a stern look. "What are you going to tell Hope? That you had a chance to free her mother from the curse, but decided against it for the fear of lost authority?"
Klaus tapped his fingers against the table, staring off into the distance with an irritated frown.
Rebekah glanced at Stefan who joined her at the table, leaning on his elbows and catching Klaus' gaze.
"We're not blackmailing or threatening you. I'm asking you as a friend-"
"A friend! So now we're friends! The last time I said that you never said it back!" Klaus proclaimed.
Caroline's head snapped up and she stifled a groan. "What are you, five? I mean, four. Because Hope's five and I've never seen her acting that childish!"
"Aunt Rebekah!" As if she heard her name being spoken, Hope ran into the kitchen and straight to Rebekah, climbing onto her lap and wrapping her arms around her neck. "I didn't know you were coming! I don't have a picture for you!" Hope said sadly, leaning back to show the pictures she was holding in her hand to Rebekah.
"That's OK, sweetheart," Rebekah said with a laugh, watching Hope smoothing out the corners that had gotten folded during the hug as she was splaying the pictures over the table.
"This one is for Daddy, this one for Mommy, Aunt Freya, Uncle Elijah, Grandma Liz, Damon and Elena-"
"They are all lovely! You've been busy," Rebekah said with a smile, reaching out for one of the pictures. "I especially like the one for your mom," she said, lifting the picture Hope had drawn for Hayley and giving Klaus a pointed look from above the sheet of paper.
Rolling his eyes, Klaus leaned back in his chair.
"Did you make one for Stefan?" Rebekah asked, scrutinizing the collection on the table and giving Hope a questioning look.
Hope shifted her eyes between the pictures and Stefan, momentarily perturbed by the question, but she quickly regained her composure and grabbed one of the pictures off the table to hand it to Stefan.
She looked at it sadly, pouting a little and then said in a matter-of-fact, reasonable tone. "He can have Damon and Elena's one, since they're not here."
Stefan thanked Hope and looked at the picture with a sigh. "Guess that's my cue to get a life."
To Hope's puzzlement, everyone laughed.
xxxdelenaxxx
"We can't assume she's lying. And even if she is, it's probably because she's scared. Or maybe she just has a hard time believing the time-travel story," Elena said with a weak smile. "Either way, we just have to find a way to get her to trust us."
"We kind of saved her life. If that can't make her trust us, I don't know what could," Damon snapped with a frown.
"Katherine saved her life once too. And yesterday she was trying to get her killed. She has every reason to be cautious. And we're not in that great of a hurry."
"Of course we are in a hurry, Elena! Anything can happen at any given moment. Besides, everything that we do here can potentially change the future and that's not a good idea. We aren't supposed to be doing that. But since I've... merged with myself," Damon said with a mirthless grimace, "it's not possible not to mess something up, eventually."
Stefan rubbed his forehead in a nervous gesture, his confusion growing with every second, his eyes darting between Damon and Elena as he was trying to keep up with them, which proved difficult but possible in terms of their fast-paced walking, but in terms of what they were talking about, he felt completely lost.
"What were you and Emily talking about?" Stefan asked, taking advantage of a moment of silence.
He'd been waiting for Damon and Elena outside the house for a longer while, but since they weren't there, he'd gone searching for them and had found them in the garden talking to Emily. He hadn't heard a word of their conversation, had just seen Emily end it, leaving Damon and Elena to stare after her with very distressed expressions on their faces.
Wincing, Damon stifled a groan. "Stefan, this is not a good time for random questions."
"How is this a random question?" Stefan inquired with a frown. He couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but there was something different about his brother's tone, something that all of a sudden made his every word sound as if it was indeed a word uttered by an older brother.
Damon stopped abruptly in his tracks and turned around to face Stefan. "Fine."
Stefan looked to Elena to make sure that Damon was still not acting strange. He didn't trust his own judgment of that anymore, but he figured that as long as Elena didn't look anxious or horrified, everything was alright.
"Damon." Elena closed one of Damon's hands in hers and propped her chin on his arm, giving him a meaningful look, so he wouldn't say anything unnecessary.
"You want to know what's happening?" Damon said, seemingly ignoring Elena's unspoken suggestion to calm down or lower his voice or preferably both. "There you go. We are not us." Stefan blinked. "I mean, we are us, but we are us from the future," Damon clarified with a faint, lop-sided smile.
Stefan stared at Damon for a few seconds in silence, before his eyes almost involuntarily shifted to Elena.
"Stop looking at Elena!" Damon exclaimed with an impatient grimace. "She'll tell you the same thing! We're not crazy. We just... traveled back in time and now we have to figure out a way to go back to the future," he concluded with a grim sigh.
The necessity to decipher Damon's last sentence caused Stefan to seemingly shake himself out of his reverie and blink rapidly. "Back to the future?" He muttered at last, not sure where to start verifying the bizarre things he was hearing, although he couldn't deny that as strange as this explanation sounded, it felt true if he was to just go by expressions on Damon and Elena's faces.
"We didn't remember it at first, but yesterday we got our memories back and now," Elena grimaced, "now we have to find a way to go back, because-" She drew a breath.
"Because we have to go back," Damon brusquely cut in. "And you're not going to get more details if you don't wipe that look of utter befuddlement off your face."
"Damon, it's not his fault he can't wrap his mind around all this right away," Elena said in a hushed voice, tugging on Damon's hand.
He tugged on hers in turn and Elena stifled an exasperated sigh, but then smiled faintly when Damon caught her off guard by pressing a quick, light kiss to her lips.
"I know."
"How long has it been?" Stefan asked, regaining his composure and trying to appear unfazed as requested, although his mind was reeling. "How many years back did you travel?" Stefan rephrased his question, not sure how to ask it, so it wouldn't sound bizarre, which probably wasn't possible.
He thought that the only way to break on through his confusion was to get a few facts straight.
"Five? Ten?" Stefan offered helpfully since Damon and Elena exchanged a look, but didn't answer his question. Stefan's eyes widened at the sudden idea. "Twenty?"
It didn't seem like a plausible possibility, but he couldn't imagine a different reason for their problem with answering the question other than the fact that they had traveled from a very distant future.
Damon narrowed his eyes at Stefan, briefly entertaining the thought of asking Stefan which one of them looked more forty to him, but then he wasn't exactly in the teasing mood, so he decided to just tell him the truth.
For a few moments Stefan's eyes shifted between Damon and Elena and then suddenly his frown disappeared and he chortled. Damon and Elena looked at each other without turning their heads much.
"And I almost started believing in all this!" Stefan shook his head with another laugh that started fading off his face when he noticed that neither Damon nor Elena looked amused.
"You are not joking?" Stefan said at last, paling a little.
Biting her lip, Elena lightly shook her head.
"But..." Stefan trailed off with a grimace, trying to understand. "How could you be alive two hundred years from now?"
"I have a less complicated question," Damon said, squinting. "Today we have to invite everyone to the wedding, go to the seamstress, locate the Council's secret library and possibly break into it toward the end of the day. Pick the activity you want to help us with."
"Not until you tell me everything!" Stefan exclaimed, catching both Damon and Elena off guard.
"Breaking into the library it is," Damon decided, ignoring Stefan's outburst. He took Elena's hand in his and started walking briskly again.
Stefan turned to follow them. "Why can't you just-"
"Because it's complicated, Stefan!" Damon replied, turning to him so abruptly that the movement made Stefan jolt. "For the lack of a better word," Damon muttered with a frown.
"I'm sure it is," Stefan allowed, regarding Damon and Elena with a thoughtful, worried gaze. "Tell me at least why you came here in the first place?"
Damon's mouth twitched. "You know what?" He said, glancing at Elena for support. "On the second thought, let's talk about these upcoming two hundred years. Do you want to start with how you and I became vampires, how dad killed us, how you killed dad, the list of your victims also known as the Chicago Closet List or how you joined the high school baseball team? Although that last one is toward the end of the story, so if you want to do this chronologically-
"Damon!"
Damon turned his eyes to Elena, seemingly surprised by the horrified tone of her voice. Wincing, Elena looked at Stefan whom Damon's words rendered wide-eyed and completely speechless.
"I think I would best like to do the wedding invitations," Stefan mumbled, turning around and walking off.
Elena gave Damon a scolding look. He shrugged.
xxxdelenaxxx
"Are you sure you want to give them that much time? If he didn't make up his mind already, I don't think he will. Whoever came up with the superfluous idea of asking for his opinion?" Enzo slumped down onto the couch with a grimace, half-expecting Bonnie to lash out at him, but this time she seemed not to have noticed he was invading her personal space.
"His siblings," Bonnie replied gruffly, to Enzo's amazement accepting a glass of wine from his hand. "Can't blame them. It doesn't matter anyway. If he won't make or change his mind by tomorrow, I'm going to tell Hope that her dad's going to bring back her mom, Damon and Elena. Let's see how he deals with that," Bonnie said with a hint of cold determination in her voice, slightly thrusting up her chin.
Enzo chuckled wryly. "One hell of a devious plan, unless everyone overestimates how much he cares for his daughter. If he really cared, he would've decided to go along with his brother's idea already."
"Says the man who is physically unable to care. How is your curse, by the way?" Bonnie asked, nearing the glass to her lips, but then putting it away with a grimace. "I hate red wine."
"Noted." Enzo leaned his head against the back of the couch. "I don't know. It's not like anyone tried to test it lately."
"I'm glad you said 'lately', otherwise I might've started feeling sorry for you and give it a shot," Bonnie said flatly, curling up her feet underneath her, her eyes fixed straight ahead.
Enzo turned his head to look at her, a smirk playing about his lips. "Feel free. I just added 'lately' for the melody of the sentence."
Bonnie gave him a no-nonsense look, but then turned toward him more and Enzo's eyes widened a little, but Bonnie simply propped her head on her elbow and looked past him at the fireplace with a determined expression on her face.
"We can't risk Damon and Elena getting hurt because of Klaus." Bonnie's eyes shifted to Enzo. "You get that, right?"
Mirroring Bonnie's movements Enzo gave her a smile. "If you're looking for a partner in crime, look no further."
"I hope no crime will be necessary, but just in case Caroline's wrong..." Bonnie trailed off with a frown.
"She's certain he'll do it?"
"It's hard to tell. Everything Caroline's says sounds like she's certain of it, except that most of the time it's just the tone of her voice."
Enzo chuckled soundlessly and Bonnie looked like she might smile, but then only the frown on her face deepened.
"Everything is going to be fine," Enzo said, on an impulse reaching out and squeezing Bonnie's hand in a reassuring gesture.
She shifted her hand, as if her first thought was to snatch it free, but on the second thought she stopped herself and just gave Enzo a pensive look.
"How do you know?" She asked in a low voice.
"Because in the end, everything always turns out fine around here," he said with a shrug, removing his hand and Bonnie was somehow shocked to realize that she'd liked the way he'd held it for those few seconds.
Then again, maybe it was just the warmth that she missed. The sense of closeness. She'd fallen into that trap before and she wasn't going to make the same mistake the second time. There must be more to love than just the absence of loneliness.
"All the magic will go away," Enzo continued, hoping to brighten the mood. He'd been feeling gloomy ever since they'd discovered that Damon's and Elena's baby might die, but the latest developments had ignited hope and on top of that, there was something about Bonnie that always made him want to make her smile. "Damon and Elena will come back and we'll be dancing on their wedding as the maid-of-honor and the best man."
Bonnie raised her eyebrow at him. "And how did you figure you'd be asked to be the best man?"
"I'm the only viable candidate."
"Really?"
Enzo nodded and Bonnie tried not to smile, even though his words brought a ray of light into her thoughts. Imagining their lives just being ordinary one day was the happiest thought, but so difficult to grasp and yet he made it sound as if it was really possible.
"Stefan would be awkward, the dude who erased Elena's memories is out of the question, Desmond seems nice, but parents are kind of a separate category. Pairing you up with your ex-boyfriend would be weird," Enzo trailed off for a second to take in Bonnie's reaction and when she didn't protest his word choice, he concluded. "So any way you look, I have no competition."
"Right. Not to rain on your parade, but what if Damon and Elena get married before they come back? Then there will be no wedding."
Enzo chuckled. "I'd like to see Caroline letting them get away with not having her as their wedding planner. She's easily going to make them get married again if need be."
That finally made Bonnie smile.
xxxdelenaxxx
After making sure Stefan drank one full glass of vervained water that should hopefully keep him safe until morning, Damon headed back to his room where Elena was waiting.
He wished the circumstances were different, so they could enjoy the hilarity of all this sneaking out, the delight of their upcoming wedding. But the way things were now, there were more reasons to worry than to rejoice and today was a rather spectacular failure.
Not only Emily hadn't provided them with a solution, but the conversation with Winston Forbes had also led nowhere as he'd proved more secretive than Damon had expected him to be. Of course, he didn't doubt that discovering the location of the Council's secret library was only a matter of time, but he was much less certain whether that would actually help. He was trying to reassure Elena that it would, but he wasn't quite succeeding at reassuring himself. What were the chances that they would find such a rare and somewhat futuristic kind of spell in the 19th century Mystic Falls collection? He was beginning to wonder if wasting time on that kind of research made any sense. Perhaps they should proceed right away to finding a knowledgeable witch. New Orleans was already thriving and as of yet he didn't make any enemies among witches or among anyone, really, so perhaps traveling to New Orleans to seek help was the best course of action.
Damon stopped in his tracks at the sound of his name being spoken in a clear, flat voice and after looking around the corridor with wary eyes he blinked, spotting Emily by the balcony door.
She held his gaze, as if to make sure he'd noticed her and then disappeared behind the curtains.
Not sure what to expect, Damon crossed the hallway and followed Emily onto the balcony. The cool, night air hit him as soon as he stepped outside, Emily's silhouette looking more like a shadow against the dark gray, starless sky.
"Why did you come here?" Emily asked, staring into the night, her hands propped on the rail. He didn't immediately answer, so she turned to look at him. "You told me you traveled back in time, but you didn't tell me why."
With a grimace, Damon absently ran his hand across the rail, his eyes scanning the dark garden below. Reluctantly, he told Emily about Kai's curse and explained why they'd left.
"So when you go back, you are going to die," Emily concluded, regarding him carefully, the indifferent tone of her voice making it difficult to tell what she was thinking.
"Probably," Damon said dismissively. "Look. I know you may not feel that you have enough reasons to trust us, but if you know anything or anyone who could help, I'll do anything-"
"Tomorrow, after the wedding, when the sun goes down, I will meet Elena and you by the river, in the place where you arrived."
Damon stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, the flatness of Emily's voice almost making him doubt the meaning of her words.
Damon nodded, looking at her with increased intensity, his eyes burning with hope. "But you said that you couldn't help us," he said carefully, a trace of confusion in his voice.
"I said I couldn't send you back to the future. I never said I didn't want to help you," Emily corrected. "Meet me tomorrow," she said, ignoring Damon's attempts to press for some details. "And if everything goes well, tomorrow night you will be back home."
xxxdelenaxxx
Jenna closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening the door and walking into the room where Alaric was waiting for her.
Between Shane dissecting the workings of the loop spell for everyone, Jeremy announcing that Sarah had taken temporary custody of Kai's body and her sister needing her support, Jenna kept postponing talking to Alaric. There was also the strange fact that she was as impatient to talk to him alone as she was scared. For her the moment they'd last seen each other felt like yesterday. For him it must've felt like a very distant past.
"I've never seen Miranda that anxious. I didn't want to leave her-" Jenna started explaining right away, but Alaric interrupted her with a soft smile.
"I understand," he said, rising to his feet and taking a step toward her and Jenna wasn't sure if it were the evening shadows, but he seemed taller than she remembered, his voice sounded a bit differently and she started feeling like it had really been years since they'd talked last.
"Have you been seating here alone for long?" Jenna asked, trying to keep her voice steady and casual.
A glimpse of dejected smile flickered in Alaric's eyes. "I've been quite alone for the last few years. Got used to it."
Jenna wanted to ask about his great escape to the north, but the melancholy in his eyes doused the spark of her sense of humor, so when he stepped even closer she spoke in a low, sincerely compassionate voice.
"I'm so sorry about what happened to your family. That's horrible. I don't even know what to say," she added with a grimace.
"You said all that there's to be said," Alaric replied under his breath, a brief, bittersweet smile flitting across his face.
Jenna took a few steps to meet him half-way across the room and then when they were at last standing face to face, in close proximity to each other, something strange happened. All of a sudden his voice sounded like his voice again, his gaze as reassuring as she remembered.
"I wish I could say I missed you, but I didn't," Jenna said after taking a sharp intake of breath and just deciding to try putting her thoughts into words. "I didn't have time to miss you. To me it feels like nothing has changed, but I know we can't pick up where we left off."
"Would you want that?" Alaric asked and Jenna blinked, caught off guard by the question. "I'm not sure I'm still the person you remember. I feel like over the years the list of things I regret is much, much longer than the list of things I'm proud of."
"Yeah, I heard about you messing with Elena's memories. Enzo drilled us on that one really well."
"I'm sure he did," Alaric said with a wry snort. "But I'm not just talking about that," he added grimly.
"I know," Jenna acknowledged, wishing that she could just wrap her arms around him and hug him, but their time apart like an invisible barrier was stopping her from doing it right away. "But it's never too late to get over one's regrets or start making better choices. Or both."
Alaric looked at her for a longer while in silence and Jenna started fearing that he was putting together a polite break-up speech, but then he caught her off guard once again.
"I never stopped loving you, Jenna. I would've never left you. If you didn't die, we would've never spent a day apart, I'm sure of it. I have changed and my life has, but what we had? That didn't change at all. So if you want to try picking up where we left off... I want to try to."
xxxdelenaxxx
"I was beginning to worry!" Elena said in a hushed voice, rushing to Damon when he walked into the room and closed the door behind him.
Damon gave her a faint, reassuring smile before closing his arms around her in a tight hug as soon as she fell into his arms. He closed his eyes, reveling in their closeness. Maybe that's what death could be like? Maybe when he died, he could be holding onto a single thought, image, memory? One moment stretching into the eternity, like a glimpse of ever-burning light in the pitch dark stillness of an endless night?
There would be no reason to be afraid to die if death could be a neverending contemplation of Elena Gilbert.
"Damon?"
Reluctantly, Damon lifted his head from where it was buried in Elena's neck and gave her a small smile. "I love you, Elena," he said in a warm whisper, cradling her face in his hands.
Elena frowned, feeling her heart clench both at the words and at the gloomy thought that hearing these words now was making her feel scared instead of happy, because of the hint of acute sadness in Damon's voice.
"I love you too," Elena said quietly, mirroring his gesture, looking at him expectantly, because she was sure something must have just happened to make him look at her in such a heartbreakingly rueful way.
"I talked to Emily," Damon spoke in a low, calming voice. "Tomorrow night we're going back home." He smiled reassuringly, holding her gaze.
Elena's eyes widened in surprise and Damon tried to come up with a perfect expression to describe the color of her eyes, but to no avail. There were no words beautiful enough to describe it.
"Tomorrow? But how? Did you talk to her just now? But in the morning she said-"
Damon interrupted the string of Elena's feverish questions explaining that he didn't get many answers out of Emily, just a promise that tomorrow she'd help them go home.
Elena's hands closed around his shoulders. "Tomorrow," she repeated in a hollow voice, returning Damon's smile, feeling relieved at the thought that by tomorrow their baby might be safe, but at the same time twinges of wintry pain spread across her chest. "But... we still have time. We can go back home later," she said in rushed whisper, her teeth chattering a little as she spoke, her grip on Damon's shoulders tightening.
Damon's forehead wrinkled as he regarded Elena carefully, quickly guessing the reason behind her reaction.
"First of all, we don't know for sure if whatever Emily has in mind will work. She was being very cryptic about the whole thing, so the sooner we check if this will really work the better. We can't wait until the last moment, because then it will be too late to search for other solutions."
Biting her lip, Elena nodded as matter-of-factly as possible, but then she burst into tears and locked her arms around Damon's neck in a adamant embrace. He pressed her to him so hard they both could barely breathe.
"I can't lose you," she whispered, burying her face in Damon's neck to stifle a heart-splitting sob when his only reply was the warmth of his hands on her back.
She lost count of how many times they were repeating these words to each other and she wondered if she subconsciously didn't feel like there was some magic enclosed in them, as if saying that she couldn't lose him had to, absolutely had to prevent just that from happening.
"I'll always love you, Elena," Damon said with his cheek pressed to the top of Elena's head. "I'll always be with you. Every breath you take will be mine. Every time you smile, I'll be smiling with you. I'll not die, Elena." He drew back to cup her face in his hands and Elena tried to blink back the tears flooding her eyes to see his face more clearly. "I'll just become that love that I feel for you. It will always be everywhere around you, anywhere you go, keeping you safe."
Damon grimaced when this only made Elena cry more violently. With a soundless moan Elena pressed her mouth against his and kissed him, the salty taste of tears burning their lips as they kissed, each kiss like a flame, fiery and warm, sending ringlets of heat through them.
Elena's hand slid under Damon's shirt so roughly that she ripped the fabric open, Damon's head hitting the door when she started plastering sizzling kisses to his chest.
They stumbled toward the bed, kissing madly, Elena's nightdress tossed to the side with such force that it knocked a few books off the nightstand.
"I like our life when it is like this. A wedding night before the wedding," Damon whispered against Elena's mouth before kissing her again, his hands caressing her skin, tenderly, deliberately.
Elena smiled brokenly at his words, cradling his face in her hands when they sat up on the bed after removing the last piece of clothing separating them.
She grazed his skin with her fingertips, trying to concentrate on the texture of his skin, but shuddering inwardly at the excruciatingly painful thought that it might be their last night together. No amount of goodbyes could possibly make it easier. It seemed to hurt more every time. They'd overcome so many obstacles, survived so many storms and yet somehow it still wasn't enough to earn them an ordinary life that they'd cherish until their last breath. If only they could take it together.
Elena's head fell into the pillows, the weight of Damon's body pressing against her, his lips trailing open-mouthed, torrid kisses across the skin of her neck, her shoulders, her collarbones. Draping her leg over his, Elena pulled his lips to hers, exploring every crevice of his mouth, their moans muffled by the sounds of the wind, strong gusts throwing the curtains to the sides, causing the glass windows to rattle.
Digging her fingernails into Damon's back, Elena smiled against his lips when he kissed her slowly, dragging his lips across her face, across her eyelids, each kiss more tender, warmer, his hands kneading her soft skin, grazing it with gentle earnestness that made her scream in her head, her teeth sinking into his shoulder when he nuzzled her neck without changing the frenzied pace at which they were moving together.
"Elena..." Damon's forehead fell against hers and they looked at each other, their vision obscured by the heat and tears, their heartbeats reverberating in their ears. "I want you to get everything you're looking for," he whispered huskily, brushing the strands of hair off her cheek.
"I already did." Elena's voice broke and she grimaced, her hands moving from Damon's shoulders to his face and she tried to smile through her tears before pressing a lingering kiss to his lips. "I've got you."
xxxdelenaxxx
Caroline woke up with a start at the sound of her door being pushed open and someone screaming her name.
She sat up and then rushed outside of her bedroom, her nightdress a flowery blur around her that came to a sudden stop when Hope jumped into her arms in the middle of the hallway.
"My Mom's going to be free of her curse!" Hope informed Caroline with a gleeful smile, hardly able to catch her breath from excitement. "I mean, we're going to try freeing my Mom from the curse," Hope corrected herself in a reasonable tone, as if reminding herself she was supposed to remember about that, but then her smile returned with a double-force. "Uncle Elijah found a spell that can get rid of all the magic!" She waved her hands in the air, clearly impressed. "Not all magic is bad, but we can't erase only bad magic, so we have to erase all of it," Hope said a little sadly, clearly regretting she didn't have a chance to become a real witch. "But if this spell will work, I'll be seeing my Mom every single day!" She exclaimed joyfully in such a shrill voice that it made Caroline's ears hurt, but she couldn't bring herself to care, only smiling happily back at Hope instead. "I'll go tell Grandma Liz about it!" Hope concluded and Caroline placed her back on her feet and watched her run to her mother's room.
When she turned around she saw Klaus leaning against the frame of Hope's room's door, a storybook tucked under his arm. He shrugged.
Caroline looked at him, the smile she was giving Hope brightening even more into the one that reminded Klaus of that night on the empty game field when they'd met after the graduation ceremony.
"What a thing it will be," Caroline said, her eyes sparkling with everything from joy to relief to pride. "To work hard every day just to stay alive."
"Is that a request for a painting of a hummingbird?"
Caroline narrowed her eyes at him, trying to keep her voice haughty. "Actually, I'd prefer a portrait."
Klaus gave her a smile, more happy than smug that lit up his eyes. "I was hoping to hear that one day."
