A/N

If you haven't read chapter 28, you should read that before this chapter. I'm posting two chapters in one day, so there could be confusion. But two chapters in one day! Yay!

Thank you to everyone who is still reading. Please review - I'd love to know what you think about these chapters. As I said in the author's note on chapter 28, this ridiculously long fic is now almost over. This installment concludes the main plot. Look out for another one or two chapters, either wrap-up chapters or an epilogue. I'm planning to post the next, possibly final chapter of this fic, on March 1.

This chapter is unbeta'd because I am impatient and could not wait to post. But I do want to thank my two betas, Moonstone and the real Sajen, for their amazing help and feedback on this fic as a whole. I couldn't have done it without you guys! And I couldn't have it done it without all of you reading, being supportive and interested in the story. I never meant for this to be a long story. But when people were into it, I found surprising directions to take it.

Wishing you all the good things!

Norah

...

July 2018

Mystic Falls, Virginia

Less than an hour later

When they returned from rescuing Caroline—much easier than expected because her captor had left her alone, weakened by vervain, but alone and unprotected—they found a lot more people gathered around the hotspot. This was going to be difficult to explain. Caroline decided that as many townspeople as possible should be compelled away from the area. There was no reason for the whole town to learn that the supernatural existed. And these people had stayed in the dark this long, maybe they could continue to live their blissfully normal, ignorant lives, never questioning why their town had so many gas leaks, or why every town celebration ended with at least one person brutally murdered. Why not let them continue to be normal?

So Matt expanded the perimeter, making sure that innocents couldn't get close enough to see anything. Tommy, Caroline, and Klaus roamed around the street, finding people who were already gawking at the magic whirlpool, and compelling them to go home. Most of them obeyed. A few, mostly Council members, were on vervain. But none of them realized they were being compelled. They just thought their compellers were bossy. Those who knew Caroline expected nothing less. If she had two friends going around talking to people just like she was, then surely Caroline Forbes was in charge of this whole plan to send them home.

There was a lot of standing around. Tommy was standing next to Damon and Elena as something or someone came at them. Tommy threw himself in front of the two humans, snarling. Now Tommy seemed to be wrestling a person who was stronger than him. Another vampire? Someone older? Just as it seemed like the attacker, a woman, was going to win, Damon stepped into the fray and shoved a stake into the woman's chest. The vampire writhed, turned gray, and went still. Damon jumped back, looking relieved, as Tommy sat up and clapped him on the back. "Thanks, old man," Tommy told Damon, and Elena realized that this exact scene had happened in her vision, the day she met Tommy. The vision that had convinced them all to trust Tommy.

But it wasn't just townspeople and rogue vampires who were here. Bonnie and the witches arrived. Elena had expected arguments about what they were going to do with the magic to break out, again, but everyone was strangely quiet, solemn. Maybe it was because soon after the witches arrived, two more people were sucked into the circle around the whirlpool. Klaus, who she once saw as the ultimate villain of her story, and now saw as just another screwed up, mostly evil person with an awful lot to atone for. And Bonnie. Bonnie was taken right along with Klaus. She kept telling herself that Bonnie would be fine. That she'd seen Bonnie in one of the visions, and in the other she'd known that Bonnie was alive and well. She told herself that Bonnie was not in danger. But seeing her best friend stuck in that circle, unable to escape the magic force field—Elena couldn't breathe when she looked at Bonnie so near the whirlpool.

I'm sorry, she whispered in her head. I should have kept you out of all of this. This is all my fault, she whispered silently. Because it always came back to Elena. She was the doppelganger. She was the magnet for bizarre supernatural elements showing up in her hometown. She was the reason that Stefan had come back and Damon had stayed. She was the reason Katherine had come back, and Klaus, and Rebekah. If it wasn't for her, Bonnie's mother and Caroline would still be human. Matt's sister would be alive. Tyler might have never even triggered his werewolf curse. Jeremy could be living a normal life. And if wasn't for her just having to have a baby, a baby who of course had to be magical and weird (if also perfect), Elena felt sure that this hotspot wouldn't be about to explode. Or implode. Or whatever it was doing. Because Summer was linked to the magic. And even if it wasn't Summer's fault, Elena was surely responsible for the Other Side and Hell collapsing in her town. Because none of that would have happened if she wasn't a magnet for the supernatural and the just plain weird.

So Elena couldn't look at Bonnie. And she was just as quiet as everyone else.

She and Damon and Nate had sat down on a bench, and they sat their silently. Damon had an arm around her. Summer had grabbed hold of his finger.

"She's such a pretty baby." Elena looked up to see Alaric and the twins standing in front of them. She smiled sadly. "I should take her, Elena," he went on.

Elena just stared at him. He had to be crazy.

"Who knows when you're going to be zapped into that circle," he said.

Elena glanced from him to the twins. "I'm good with her," Lizzie said. "She likes me."

"She likes me better," Josie said with an exaggerated pout.

Elena had to laugh. "I'm sure she likes both of you. But I'm not letting go of my baby."

But Damon was kissing Elena's head, then Summer's, and murmuring, "He's right. Who knows what's going to happen that close to that thing. She'll be safer with Ric."

Elena frowned, not wanting to let her child go. "What if she's supposed to be in there with us?"

Damon shook his head. "Nice try, honey. But she wasn't in the vision."

Elena sighed. He was right. But still, the thought of letting her baby go—it was terrifying.

Ric looked at his watch. "It's 5:58, Elena. We need to do this now."

Without arguing any more, she unstrapped Summer from the baby carrier and handed her carefully to Ric. Damon pulled a pacifier and a fuzzy toy rabbit out of his pockets. "She likes these," he said. "And she likes it when I sing the 'Five Little Ducks' song, but I make it 'Five Little Vampires."

Elena nodded. "There's milk in bottles in the fridge, back at the house. And if she gets fussy, you just have to take her for a drive in the car, and put on NPR. It bores her right to sleep."

Ric, holding Summer like a pro, grinned at them. "Guys. You need to chill. You'll be out of there in no time. And I'm pretty good at keeping kids alive."

Elena was just about to say something about not letting the baby drink any bourbon when screams of pain erupted beside her. And there was Damon falling off the bench, curling into a ball. Beside him, Nate was screaming bloody murder and thrashing around. Damon was much quieter. He was trying not to scream, and so he was almost quiet but then the screams ripped out of him before he shut his mouth, biting his lip so hard it bled.

Elena knelt down beside him, reaching out to touch him, but he was fading, splintering, not quite solid. And then they were both gone. Elena collapsed on the ground, sobbing. She had been trying to keep it together for so long, and now the tears were flooding out of her, and she thought she might just melt into the ground. Ric was saying something. But she ignored him. Summer was crying, but Elena could not pull herself from the ground.

Everything was so hard. It had been so hard for so long. Ever since her parents died when she was seventeen. Elena tried to be strong. She tried to be brave. She tried to do the right thing, to hang onto her morals, and her hope, and her faith that somehow the sun would keep coming up, day after day. But every time she felt like she had won, like they'd defeated the bad guy and the world was okay again, every time she was getting her footing and learning how to live in a new reality—the ground opened up. And, inevitably, everything got weird again. It was like her whole world was like that gaping hole of magic where the clock tower should be, like the ground below her was just an illusion. That gaping hole was always there, ready to suck in any semblance of normal, ready to knock her off her feet, ready to throw more chaos into her already chaotic life.

So, no, Elena Gilbert would not get up off the ground. Because there wasn't any point. Whatever she did would end up being undone. Might as well just lie here, get some rest. Because this was supposed to be her happy ending. A husband. A kid. Medical school. Her friends and brother safe. But the calm never lasted. Instead of doing an internship over the summer, Elena Gilbert was back in Mystic Falls dealing with a fucking black hole of weird magic. Trying to save the world. Again.

Even though she didn't have proof, Elena Gilbert was sure, down to her bones sure, that this situation was all her fault. Somehow. It was always her fault.

There was a whoosh of air beside her. And then a gentle hand on her back. A familiar scent of lilacs and O-positive. "Elena," her other best friend murmured. "He's okay. They all are."

"I just. It's just."

"I know. It sucks to be us today. But get up. Please."

"Why?"

"Well, for starters you're scaring your daughter and mine," Caroline said, her voice gentle but firm. Slightly perturbed.

Elena scrambled up to a sitting position. Caroline sat beside her, and threw her arms around her. "I'm scared too," she whispered.

"It's just that these things keep happening. And every time I get my life back together—"

"Some new terribly supernatural thing happens?" Caroline said, laughing a little.

Elena nodded. "I'm tired. Do you ever feel like you're eighty?"

"All the time."

"But at least you're not actually getting old."

"Appearances," Caroline said.

They sat like that for a long while. After what seemed like forever, Ric sat down beside Elena. Summer reached out her hand to Elena, and Elena let her baby wrap her whole hand around her little finger. "This is going to be okay," Ric said. "Both of you, I want you to know that. This is going to be fine. And when you get in there, you'll know what to do. Whatever you do, it'll be the right thing."

On the other side of the street, there was a scuffle. Shouting. Tommy was wrestling with young dark-haired man who looked remarkably like Tyler Lockwood. The stranger pulled out a stake, but Tommy was stronger. Caroline let go of Elena and flashed over to them, helping Tommy subdue the guy and yelling for wolfsbane. No one had wolfsbane, but one of the witches who hadn't been sucked into the circle managed to bring down the guy with a witchy aneurysm. Once he was definitely down, and Caroline was tying him up (because of course she'd brought rope), Elena and Ric ran over the group.

"We found our Lockwood wolf," Tommy was saying. "I was beginning to think he didn't exist."

"Is this the man from your vision?" Caroline asked.

Elena nodded.

The werewolf looked frightened and angry and confused. "Ungag him," she said. When his mouth was free to talk, she said, "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

"No," he spat out. "But I can smell vampire on you, so I'd rather not talk to you either."

She rolled her eyes. "You might want to get over yourself."

Elena went back to sitting quietly with Ric and Summer while Caroline explained what was going on to the new arrival, her voice the height of bossy and condescending.

It was almost seven, broad daylight, a real morning, a real day, when Caroline and Tommy started talking about what they were going to do about their predicament.

"Do you think we'll get a choice?" Caroline said. "Or will one of us just end up in there?"

Tommy shrugged. "Since one of us was in one vision and the other one in the other, my guess is that they were actually seeing two futures. Obviously, whichever one of us is in there, we'll be the deciding vote. But if there's two futures, there's got to be a choice, right?"

Caroline nodded. "Any chance I can change your mind?"

Tommy scrunched up his face in thought. "Any chance I can change yours?"

"No."

"And if I say I've been on this planet longer? A lot longer."

Elena laughed to herself. When they both looked at her, she said, "It doesn't matter. Caroline has seen more than you have. You've lived this ordinary vampire life. Until a couple months ago, you thought Klaus was a myth. Caroline has seen it all. Originals. Silas. The Other Side and Hell going away. She even hired a siren to be her nanny."

Caroline giggled.

Tommy said, "Then maybe you should be the one in there."

Caroline grinned, a ridiculously huge and self-satisfied grin.

And then she doubled over in pain. So did Elena. And the werewolf.

This pain. It was like nothing Elena had ever experienced. It was worth than dying. It was worse than giving birth. It was worth than having shards of wood close to her heart. It was worse than any torture anyone could dream up.

It felt like every fiber of her body was ripping apart. And it felt slow. Like this process was lasting a day, a month, maybe a whole lifetime. While she was screaming, she thought that maybe she would actually die. Maybe they were all dead. Maybe Damon only appeared to be in that circle. Maybe Damon was dead.

Elena kept screaming.

Then, all at once, she wasn't anywhere. She didn't have a body. She was pure thought. It was kind of nice. Almost peaceful. Then she felt herself zooming toward the magic, faster than vamp speed. It drew her close to it, like the magic was a magnet and she was a piece of iron.

Before she could remember what it was like to have a body again, she had a body. She was standing next to Damon. Well, sort of standing. Half bent over, dry heaving. Damon's hand was on her back. "Hey, hon. Glad you could join us," he said, his voice light. She breathed in deeply, decided not to throw up after all. Turning towards him, she was relieved to find that she could touch him. Elena threw herself into Damon's arms, letting herself cry into his designer t-shirt. She could feel him shuddering a little, could feel a few of his tears falling into her hair.

"It's okay," she whispered. "We're going to be okay."

"So touching," Klaus yelled from across the whirlpool. It was loud. She could barely hear him. "Now that everyone figured out how to join us, shall we begin?"

"Doing what?" Damon snapped.

Several witches began chanting. Lachland, the druid witch from Stonehenge. Perla, the snippy witch from South America. Cade's descendent, the witch from North Africa.

"Stop!" Klaus said. "Stop. Stop. Stop. You're all bloody idiots."

They kept going. Elena noticed that Bonnie was not chanting. The voices kept going. Elena didn't know the words, and yet she almost knew them. She realized, without understanding why, that if she wanted to join in. She could. And, as if to prove her mind's point, the Lockwood werewolf began chanting, his voice rising and falling with witches'. He couldn't possibly know this spell. Yet, somehow, here in this circle he knew the words. He was an equal to the witches. Right now at least.

"They're trying to bottle up the magic," Damon said. "But nothing's happening. There's not enough of them. That's what it's got to be."

Elena nodded. She had meant to join their efforts, hadn't she? She'd said that bottling the magic was the safest thing. But now? When it was really happening. How could she do that to Summer? To Damon? To herself, even? Elena felt frozen between acting and not acting.

"It's not going to work with four people," Bonnie said.

"Join us," Perla said before going back to the chant.

But Bonnie shook her head.

"Bon-Bon?" Damon yelled out. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

Bonnie frowned. "I don't know. Something doesn't feel right."

Caroline squealed in delight. "Because it's not right. And Bonnie, I know I'm biased. Of course I'm thinking about my girls. And of course Damon is thinking about his own family. But it's not just that. Every time any witch has stored some magic away for safekeeping or creating some pocket dimension, every time in the history of the world it hasn't last. If we do this, it's a ticking time bomb."

"Yes!" Klaus yelled. "Beautiful and brilliant."

Freya began chanting different words. They were beautiful. They felt magical, like they were unlocking something inside Elena. The words felt right. Klaus and Damon joined in. Nate joined in. Caroline joined in. The last witch joined in—an ancient Native American woman who had told Elena that her tribe was responsible for creating werewolves.

Elena stayed quiet. But every part of her body wanted to join Freya's chant. The other chant, it had felt wrong. She knew now what Bonnie meant.

This felt right.

Suddenly there was color everywhere. Elena could feel all this magical energy coming from the whirlpool. And somehow she could see it. It was beautiful. She glanced at Damon. He was crying. He looked happy, overcome with emotion. He squeezed her hand, leaned in to kiss her, chanting even as his lips met hers. She could feel his lips moving as he kept his mouth on her mouth.

When she began to chant, it felt inevitable. It felt wonderful. It felt like she'd taken some wonderful, wonderful drug. As Elena's voice joined the chant, she felt a power shift. The other, uglier sounding chant, was being drowned out. And the colors were now streaming out of the hotspot, flowing into the earth and into the air. And it felt right. It felt so right to Elena. Tears were now streaming out of her eyes.

Across from her, she watched Perla freeze. The woman stopped chanting the bottling spell. She looked confused, glancing around the circle, as if unsure of what she should be doing.

Elena smiled at her.

Perla nodded. She opened her mouth to chant once more, but now she was chanting Freya's words. She was helping them let the magic flow free.

Soon the other witches followed suit, and the entire circle was united in this one glorious chant.

The magic had slowed down. It was just trickling out of the hole now, like it was almost used up. They kept chanting.

With one last burst, the last of the magic flew out of the whirlpool, throwing itself at Elena as it rushed towards the earth. Damon threw his body over Elena's, as if he were trying to shield her. But nothing bad happened. It felt electric, that magic flowing through her. Pure energy. She didn't want it to leave. But it did. As quickly as it had come to her, it left her. She could feel it beneath her feet, could feel the Earth rattling with all this energy it had been missing for so long.

"It's like it went back where it was supposed to be," Elena mumbled, leaning her head on Damon's shoulder.

He nodded. "I think it went home."

They stared at the place where the whirlpool had been. No trace of the supernatural remained. The clocktower hadn't reappeared, but honestly, good riddance to that thing. In its place was just dirt. No grass or flowers. Just dirt.

"Did you see those colors?" Damon asked.

"Yeah. They gone for you too?"

He nodded.

Now people were running to them. "Thank god," Ric said as he and the twins reached them. He handed Summer to Elena, then threw his arms around Damon in a surprisingly heartfelt hug.

"It's okay, buddy," Damon said. "You knew I was coming back."

"I've learned to never be too sure of anything," Ric said, before enveloping Elena and Summer in a hug, then throwing his arms around Caroline, who had already been swarmed by her girls and Klaus.

"So that's it," Damon said, one arm around Elena, the other arm around Nate. "Everybody survived. I get the future I want. And we should get breakfast. I'm starving."

"Don't we need to do something here?" Nate asked. "I think Sheriff Donovan is about to explode with concern."

Damon rolled his eyes. "If he didn't want to explode with concern, Donovan shouldn't have taken a job as sheriff in Mystic Falls of all places. Seriously. If the guy wants a quiet life, he should just move the fuck away. Maybe work at a bookstore. Assuming he can read."

Elena slapped him upside the head. "Seriously?"

"Sorry. Whatever. Matt is great. He's so nice. But I think if I have to stay in this town for another minute, I'm going to explode." He beckoned Bonnie over to their little group. "Bon-Bon, you are my new witchy hero. Well, honestly you're always my witchy hero."

Bonnie grinned. Soon she and Elena were hugging like they might never let go of each other. "You're okay," Elena said.

Bonnie laughed. But she was crying as she said, "So are you."

"Bon-Bon, what do you say we get the hell out of this place?" Damon asked.

Bonnie took a deep, shaky breath. She looked like she was overwhelmed by everything that had happened. Finally, she said, "Yes. Please."

"Where to?" Elena asked.

"Home," Damon said. "Home for now, at least."

"The boarding house?" Nate asked, confused.

Elena shook her head. "He means Charlottesville."

"Ric? Care-bear?" Damon was yelling. "Tommy? You guys want to go celebrate at my bar? Klaus, you were right about all this shit, so I'll even let you come."

Ric grinned as he began to herd Caroline and the girls towards his truck. Klaus was sticking close to Caroline. Ric seemed too happy to even glare at Klaus as he said, "I hid a bottle of really, really good bourbon in your kitchen. For just this moment."