AN: Here I am with this much awaited chapter! Last week I did not update because I was away for a week-long trip to London. I had an amazing time, though I did manage to lose my cell phone (or someone stole it, I'm still not sure). Anyway, I just finished writing this chapter and I wanted to post it so that you guys don't have to wait another week before reading it.

I am currently studying for what will hopefully be my last University exam and I am writing my thesis so that I can get my first Degree, so I will write slowly and it could take me two weeks before the next update. I AM NOT abandoning this story since I only have 2-3 chapters left to write. I hope you'll be patient with me.

This chapter is dedicated to delenalu for her incredible reviews and out-of-this-world compliments! Thank you sooo much for all the kind words, they made my day more than once!

Sorry if I did not answer your reviews but I did read all of them with a face-splitting smile on my face!XD

Chapter 35 – Half of Who I Am

One love, one heart, one destiny.

-Bob Marley

A thick cloud of dust prevented Elena from seeing if Alaric had managed to pour Damon's blood on Esther. She hoped to God that he had been successful because she wasn't sure she could hold on much longer. Her limbs were completely numb and she didn't need to try and stand up to know she would surely fall down. The burning sensation that had started to bloom in her chest seemed to be directed toward her heart; she felt like a ring of fire was gripping the dead organ in her chest.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at the dust swirling in the air, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of the two figures inside of it. She hated being this powerless, a sensation she had thought she would never feel again the day Alaric had turned her.

After her parents' death, Elena had never felt the same again. After spending months in the care of her aunt – Jenna had done everything she could to take care of her sister's children while mourning herself – the teenage girl had run from home. She couldn't stand the thought of remaining in the house where her parents had lived and that now looked like a prison made of beautiful memories she could never relive.

Elena had lived in the streets, working odd jobs here and there and stealing food when she had no money to survive. She had not been proud of herself but while she had no idea of what she was going to do, she knew she had to survive. She had kept on wondering through the streets for two years, moving from city to city until she had felt she could not take a single step forward. She had curled up on the ground in a dark alley and had waited for her life to be over.

That's how Alaric had first found her, a scrawny girl, dirty and defeated by life with no control over herself or the events happening around her. Elena had once asked him why he had made the decision to give her some of his blood that day. Alaric had simply answered that he had seen something in her, a fire in her dead eyes that could still burn bright. He had given her his blood in the hopes of healing her enough to make her go on but her system had been too weak and she had ended up dying. The German had not forced her to turn, giving her the chance to become like him or not.

Elena had never regretted her decision. Rick had given her the chance to fight back against what life had thrown her way. Controlling the hunger for blood had been hard but it had given her exactly what she had needed; something to focus on to face life one-step at a time. The fact that she could finally exert some kind of control over herself and her life had made everything bearable.

Whatever serum she had been injected with threatened to take away everything she had gained. More importantly, it could take away Damon from her because she did not think that the way her body seemed to be shutting down was something to ignore.

"Elena."

The brunette turned to her right and saw the object of her latest thoughts moving quickly toward her. Damon knelt beside her and rested his left arm on her shoulders, holding her close against his body. Elena felt a knot forming in her throat when she realized that she could no longer feel him, her body nothing more than a prison made of flesh for her.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, his eyes moving frantically over every inch of skin he could see in search of injuries.

Elena gritted her teeth and put on a brave smile to keep him from worrying too much about her, "Did Rick succeed?" she asked him.

She could see how he wanted to ask again about her, but thankfully he understood how she wanted him to focus on the battle they were not sure was over yet.

Damon looked at the dust still swirling in the air and without a gesture, he parted it to see what was happening inside of it. Almost immediately, the two figures of Alaric and Esther became visible. The German vampire was on his feet – his stance somewhat defensive in case he needed to react quickly – while the witch was laying on the ground, a hand pressed against her cheek to try and stop the trickle of blood coming from the shards of glass imbedded in her skin.

The raven-haired man narrowed his eyes and focused on Esther's face. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he could see the vague outline of his tattoo adorning her skin. He felt a sense of elation bloom in his chest, though he tried to conceal it in case he was wrong about his assumption. Without taking his eyes away from Esther, he squeezed Elena's shoulder to let her know that things were looking good.

When she saw the dusty cloud lifting, Esther glanced up. Her eyes met Alaric's brown ones in a moment of shared incredulity over what had happened in the last minutes. A moment later, however, the witch felt an onslaught of fury starting to pervade her entire being; how dare that vampire try and stop her; and what had he thrown at her face?

Her arm struck out as fast as a snake, her hand open and facing Alaric. The German vampire raised his arms to protect himself against the witch's magic; he had no idea what she wanted to do to him but protecting himself with his arms was the only thing he could do. However, nothing happened. He lowered his arms slowly, his eyes locking on the small woman on the ground. Esther was just as shocked as he was. She looked at her hands and pointed them at Alaric another time; nothing changed.

There was no magic in her. Esther begun to panic. What was happening? The rings she was wearing and the necklace she had around her neck were packed full with magic, there was no way she had already used all the magic stored in them. She tried to extend her mind to check if her resources had somehow been depleted. Try as she might, however, she couldn't even sense the magic that should have been safely stored inside the objects in her possession.

"You can stop trying to summon your magic, Esther," Damon's voice made her turn. "You can no longer use it."

"What did you do?" she wanted to know, her eyes wide and a sense of dread pooling in her stomach.

The younger man pointed at her face and Esther's fingers curled over the wound inflicted to her by Alaric.

"That tattoo on your cheek is made with my blood, which means that I have a direct connection to you," he explained, knowing that the old witch would understand immediately what he meant. "I took away your magic when you tried to attack Alaric. You're just a mortal woman, now."

Esther shook her head, refusing to believe Damon's words, "No, no, no…you're lying, I know you're lying," she kept on saying, willing her magic to come forth and help her. As much as she wanted to show everyone in the cave that she was still a powerful witch, she just couldn't find an ounce of magic inside her or her talismans.

When the enormity of Damon's words hit her, she felt her world crumbling down. She wanted to deny the reality of her condition but she couldn't; her magic had been taken from her and she was never getting it back. Esther wrapped her arms around her stomach as if trying to keep herself together and bent forward, her forehead touching the cold ground.

Rick was not sure he understood everything that was happening so he glanced at Damon, his eyes conveying his confusion. The young man nodded at him with a small, victorious smile and then gestured toward the pile of rocks on his right. Alaric looked in that direction, frowning. At first he didn't understand what Damon was trying to tell him, a second later, however, he noticed the crumpled form of a young woman on the ground.

"Bonnie!" he exclaimed, his chest filling with worry.

With one last glance at Esther – she was still on the ground, her body shaken by the sobs escaping her every once in a while – he jogged toward Bonnie. He knelt on the ground and took her in his arms, his fingers going immediately to her neck to check for a pulse. He sighed in relief when he felt a steady rhythm thumping beneath his fingers; she was all right, only unconscious. He bit his wrist and let a few drops of his blood trickle in her mouth; she would undoubtedly yell at him for that – she never liked to drink vampire blood to heal – but Rick needed to make sure that she would be all right.

While the leader of Jäger took care of Bonnie, Damon eyed Esther's form on the ground. The second she had raised her arm toward Alaric in what had been a clear attempt at attacking him, he had syphoned her magic away leaving her completely human. He still couldn't believe that they had won, that it was all over now.

He felt Elena shiver in his arms and looked down at her. Her eyes were heavy lidded and she was panting as if she had problems breathing; her skin was turning ice cold, yet she was sweating profusely. Damon moved some locks of hair away from her face, framing her face with his hand and turning her toward him.

"Elena, are you okay?" he asked already knowing she was everything but.

The brunette looked at him with a dazed expression, "It's not over yet, you need to take care of Mikael," she breathed with effort.

Damon shook his head, "You're much more important to me. Esther can't do anything anymore and I'm sure Klaus and the others already took care of Mikael," he tried to reason with her. "Let me take care of you now," he begged her, stroking her cheek with a worried expression.

He loved that she was always thinking about everyone else's well-being but for once, he wished she could think more about herself. Or, at least, that she would let him think about her.

Elena looked about ready to argue once more but Alaric – and a now conscious if not a little worse for the wear Bonnie – joined them.

"Elena what's going on?" the German had failed to notice how bad Elena looked in the heat of the moment. "What's happening? Why do you look like you're about to keel over?"

The younger vampire simply stared at him with a helpless expression.

"She got injected with some kind of serum that, by the looks of it, will probably kill her if we don't find a way to cure her," Bonnie explained in a tired voice. Vampire blood might have ensured that her wounds would not become a problem for her but, after everything that happened, she felt physically and mentally to the point of exhaustion.

Alaric's head snapped in her direction, "Was?" he exclaimed. The next second, he turned toward Elena with wide eyes, "Wie?"

Damon ignored Rick's exclamation – he didn't know a single word of German so he really wouldn't know what to answer to those questions – and looked up at Bonnie.

"Maybe Esther can give us the antidote," he said, full of hope. "I mean, she must have an antidote lying around somewhere," he tried to sound convincing.

The young witch turned to look at Esther and grimaced; the witch had not moved a muscle in the last several minutes.

"I don't think she'd be of any help right now," she told him apologetically.

Damon gritted his teeth. Why could they never take a break? Was it too much to ask to be left in peace? A weak tug at his shirt made him lower his eyes.

"Mikael," Elena whispered.

Damon wanted nothing more than to grab her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. Why did she have to be so infuriating in that moment? She looked on the verge of dying for goodness's sake!

He tried to reign in his feelings before answering, "I've already told you that I don't care about him, I'm staying with you. Period."

Elena shook her head and started talking with obvious difficulty, "You won't forgive yourself if he hurts your family," she told him. "I want you to go," there was something akin to desperation in her voice.

Damon wanted to scream at her that he wouldn't forgive himself if something happened to her while he wasn't at her side, but Rick stopped him.

"I think you should go, Damon," he said in a calm voice.

During his and Elena's exchange, Rick had managed to calm down and observe the situation with a cool head. Elena was trying with every ounce of strength she had left to appear as calm as she possibly could about her situation. Damon was way too worried to realize what was going on while Bonnie was impossible to fool. Once Alaric had calmed down, he had realized what Elena was trying to do; she didn't want Damon seeing her in the state she was in, especially since the chances of finding a cure were dwindling down to nothing.

"I'm not leaving her," the raven-haired man looked ready to put up a fight, his arm tightening around Elena's shoulders.

Rick admired his tenacity and he felt grateful for the fact that his Elena had finally found someone who loved her completely. However, he knew that what she needed now was a moment to straighten herself up and gather her courage for what was to come. She couldn't do that with Damon worrying over her, reminding her of everything she could lose if things went bad. Furthermore, Mikael really needed to be dealt with while he was still unconscious.

The German knelt beside Damon and grasped his should in a powerful grip, "Listen to me," he commanded in the voice he usually used to impart his orders. "I know that you want to stay with her but your mission isn't over yet. You need to go and take care of Mikael. He's still unconscious so it'll take you no more than five minutes to do what you have to, then you can come here and stay with her."

The younger man did not look convinced. His eyes slid to the woman in his arms and it was clear that he did not intend to let her go. Elena locked eyes with him and Alaric could see how she was pleading him to please help her. Rick nodded at her subtly.

"Tell you what," he said, capturing Damon's attention. "You let me take care of her while you go take care of Mikael and as soon as she is feeling a little better, we join you and work on curing her so that everyone wins in this scenario," he said.

He saw how the gears started turning in Damon's head. He could understand the young man's desire to not leave his woman's side, but he also knew that Damon had an important mission to accomplish. When Damon's shoulders sagged, Rick knew he had won. The warlock bent down and placed a lasting kiss on Elena's forehead, whispering how he was going to be back before she could even notice his absence.

Reluctantly, Damon let Alaric take Elena from his arms to cradle her in his own; the young vampire looked incredibly small in the German man's embrace. With a parting look, Damon stood up ready to do what he had to.

Rick stopped him before he could turn his back on them, "Take Esther with you," he suggested. "Maybe if they see how their leader has fallen, her allies will just stop fighting against us. It would make things a lot easier for us."

Damon nodded and waved his hand in Esther's direction. The witch stood up with mechanical movements, as if her limbs were being controlled by a third party. She glanced around with wide eyes and tried to resist the invisible pull that forced her to walk toward the exit of the cave. It was a grotesque scene the one offered by the defeated witch, but Damon couldn't find any pity in him anymore.

Forcing himself not to turn and look at Elena – he knew he would cave and stay with her if he caught a glimpse of how bad she was doing – he walked stiffly behind Esther, his mind set on the task he had ahead of him.

Bonnie glanced at Rick and Elena and decided to follow Damon. She had witnessed her friend's slow deterioration and, as much as she wished with all her heart that she could do something, she couldn't pretend that her friend was going to be fine. She figured that it was the right thing to do to let the two old friends have a moment of privacy.

Elena heard Damon and Bonnie's steps fade away and she looked up at Rick, "Thank you," she whispered.

"You're welcome," he answered in kind.

The brunette buried her head against Alaric's chest and tried to ignore the way the ring of fire around her heart seemed to burn her whole being. She had managed to keep it together – more or less – as long as Damon had been at her side. She was pretty sure she was going to die and she didn't want him to remember her as the miserable creature she felt like she was. Now that Alaric was the only one present, she could allow herself to stop hiding; Rick had already seen her at her worst.

A soft whimper escaped her lips as a wave of pain rocked her insides, the intensity of it bringing her almost to tears. Alaric noticed the way she was trembling in his arms and tipped her chin up with a finger to look at her. What he saw left him feeling sick.

"God, Elena," he whispered with a broken voice. He felt utterly useless in the face of her pain.

A small part of his mind thanked whoever was listening for the fact that Damon had decided to listen to him; the young man would have never been able to deal with this. However, another part of him felt that it wasn't fair to deny Damon the chance to say goodbye to the woman he loved.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and carefully rose to his feet, Elena still safely tucked in his arms. She glanced at him in a mix of pain and confusion.

"I may have granted your wish of having some privacy," he said walking toward the altar where Esther had been preparing for her ritual. "But I can't stay here doing nothing while you suffer in this way. I have no idea what she injected you with, but maybe I can find something useful around here," he told her.

Elena did not say anything in response. Alaric was probably trying to find a way to occupy himself while she wasted away. If searching for a way to help her would make him feel better, then she wasn't going to stop him. She would have done anything for something to distract herself with in that moment. Instead, she could think about Damon and the fact that she was about to lose him. After years spent in solitude she had finally found the missing piece of her heart and now she was about to lose it. Just thinking about it made her cry. She pressed her face against Rick's shirt and let herself feel all the desperation that was inside her.

When he felt something wet against his chest, Alaric interrupted his frantic search for a cure and looked at the woman he considered his daughter, crying her heart out in his arms. To avoid jostling her too much, he sat down on the floor and leaned his back against the wall. Once he was settled, he gently cupped the side of Elena's face and dried her tears with his thumb.

"Talk to me," he said, trying to calm her down. "Tell me what can I do for you," he pleaded. He hated seeing her in so much pain.

Elena swallowed around the lump in her throat before speaking in a voice wracked by sobs, "I don't want to die."

The older vampire closed his eyes briefly. Of course she didn't want to die, that was the last thing Alaric wanted too. But what could he do? the bottles lying around on Esther's altar were probably meant for the Originals so they wouldn't solve their problems; the other vials he had seen did not look even remotely like a possible cure and he did not want to stick her with unknown substances just to see if one of them worked. For all he knew, he could make things ten times worse for her.

He looked down at her and said the first thing he could think of that could maybe bring her solace, "Do you want me to get Damon?"

The brunette's eyes widened and she shook her head as much as she could, "I don't want him to see me like this anymore. I don't want him to hurt when I…" she tried to explain but she couldn't finish her sentence if she wanted to avoid crying again.

Rick looked at her with a sad smile, "I know you think you're protecting him like this and that's why I helped you, but do you really think he's not going to be devastated whether he's here when…" he swallowed and forced himself to go on. "…when it happens?"

Elena avoided his eyes so he pressed on.

"He has a right to say goodbye. So do you," he told her. He couldn't believe the fact that he was discussing the imminent death of one of the persons he loved most in his life in such a calm way. Maybe he was in shock or something because he felt a tornado of feelings inside of him, but he couldn't express a single one of them at the moment.

"What do you say?" he asked her.

When he received no answer, he shook her a little. Maybe her strength were abandoning her far quicker than they had both thought. No matter how much he shook her, though, Alaric couldn't get her to open her eyes. He started panicking. He looked at her skin and noticed that it didn't have the typical grey tint of a dead vampire, nor were there black veins lining her face or any patch of skin he could see. He sighed in relief; she had merely lost consciousness.

Adjusting her in his arms, Alaric rose to his feet and walked toward the exit of the cave. The chances of Elena waking up were pretty low so he needed to take her to Damon as soon as possible. At least one of them would get to say goodbye.

With a heavy heart, he started jogging toward the cave where he had last seen the Originals knowing that Damon was probably still there.

In less than two minutes, he found them. The cave was full of people, both members of Jäger – he saw Tyler somewhere – and Esther's allies. Alaric had been right in thinking that they would stop fighting at the sight of their defeated leader. In the center of the cave there were the three Originals – Enzo and Hayley by their side – and, a little to the right, Damon was kneeling on the ground with his hands framing Mikael's face. The Original Father looked exactly like a desiccated vampire, a sign that Damon had been successful in immobilizing him. Bonnie was watching over him while keeping a solid grip on Esther's arm.

Stefan and Caroline were a little separated from the rest, the blonde vampire supporting the young men with his arm across her shoulders. The German vampire was pleased to see they were both more or less all right.

Rick makes his way through the cave, directed straight to the young man on his knees, "Damon!"

Damon turns immediately, perhaps alarmed by the note of urgency he heard in Alaric's voice. The German vampire would never forget the way the younger man's eyes widened in horror when he saw Elena's limp body. Damon sprung to his feet and ran to them, immediately taking Elena in his arms and sitting down on the ground with her cradled in his arms.

"Elena!" he called moving her hair out of her face and shaking her. "Elena, come on. Wake up!"

Before he could work himself into a full panic attack, Rick intervened, "She's still alive," he told him. "But I don't think she has long," he had to add.

Damon shook his head and kept his eyes fixed on Elena's face.

"What did you inject her with?" Bonnie shook Esther's arm. "Tell me what you injected her with!" the young witch was beyond angry.

Esther looked at her with empty eyes as if she couldn't understand what Bonnie was saying. The younger witch was about to slap her in an attempt to rouse her from her catatonic state, when Klaus decided to intervene surprising everyone.

He stepped up to his mother and looked her straight in the eye, using his compulsion on her, "Tell me what you injected Miss Gilbert with," he ordered her.

Thanks to her newly acquired humanity, Esther had no defense against her son's ability.

"I injected her with the serum I had used on Finn and Kol," she answered mechanically.

The Hybrid wanted to ask her what she had done to his brothers but he kept his curiosity for a less pressing time, "How does the serum work?" Maybe if they knew what was happening to Elena, they could find a way to reverse the effects.

"It erases the magic that makes her a vampire and turns her back to human, killing her in the process," Esther said.

Bonnie pressed her fingers to her temple and thought about everything they could do, trying to find a solution to their problem.

Turning to Alaric, she said "What if we complete the ritual she wanted to use?"

Rick frowned at her, "How would that help?"

Bonnie launched immediately in the explanation of her desperate plan, "The serum she used on Elena is the uncompleted one, but maybe with Damon's magic we can make it work," she reasoned. "Esther was going to use three sacrifices for her sons as an exchange of lives. We can pick anyone from them," she pointed toward Esther's allies.

Alaric looked disgusted by the idea, "And use them to revive Elena once the serum erases all her magic?"

Caroline intervened on his side, "Elena would never want something like that!" she exclaimed.

Bonnie turned to look at her with angry eyes, "Who cares? Do you want her to die?"

Stefan raised a hand in a sign of peace, "Bonnie, you know it would kill her to know someone had to die for her to live."

While the four of them argued about what to do, Damon kept on staring at Elena. She looked like she was simply asleep, peacefully so. His mind and heart and soul refused to believe that she was going to die. The simple thought was unacceptable. He needed her; there was no life without her. He had to find a way to save her, no matter the cost. He owed her so much – she had saved him so many times – he had to be the one to save her, at least this once.

His eyes fell on her right hand where the tattoo he had marked her with stood proudly. Instinctively, an idea started to form in his mind. Esther said that the serum attacked the magic that made Elena a vampire, killing her in the process. He didn't think that Bonnie's plan – using the same ritual the old witch wanted to use – would work. But what if there was no magic inside Elena? What if he syphon it out, thus making the serum useless?

His mind ran through every scenario he could come up with. If he took away her magic, Elena would go back to being a corpse in all probability, which didn't erase the problem at all. He needed to provide her with an alternative source of life if he wanted her to survive. Alaric, Caroline and Stefan were right when they said that Elena would never want anyone dying for her, so what could he do? When he thought about it, the solution was only one.

Delicately, he laid Elena on the ground and caressed her face, "Okay," he breathed. "I can do this."

The others noticed immediately how Damon's attitude changed.

"What are you doing?" Rebekah asked him.

He didn't look up to answer her, "I'm going to save her."

Everyone looked startled at his declaration. They all looked at each other, one more confused than the other. How was it possible that he had found a way to save Elena while all of them had been arguing about what they could do? As far as they knew, Damon didn't have any particular knowledge on the serum that they didn't have so where did his confidence come from?

"Maybe you should think about this," Elijah tried to reason with Damon, probably thinking that he was in shock. "Let's not to anything careless."

The others nodded at his words, while Damon simply shook his head and laid his hands over Elena's heart looking sure of what he was doing.

When Elijah tried to intervene again, Klaus stepped in, "Do you think you can do it?" he asked.

Damon looked up at him, his eyes strangely serene, "I don't know but I'll do it either way. She is…" he looked at the woman he loved with eyes full of awe. "She is the most important person in the universe for me," he said simply.

Klaus observed him for a long moment, his eyes searching for something in the young man he had seen grow up throughout the years. Maybe he found what was looking for because he simply nodded and silenced any protest by the bystanders with an icy stare.

Damon focused on the tattoo on Elena's hand – the rest of the world fading away. He started absorbing the magic etched in her, careful not to syphon it out all in one instant. This first part was the easy one, the familiar one; he had done this same thing many times in his life so he knew what to expect. The difficult part was the next, the one where he had to rely solely on his instinct if he wanted to succeed.

When he felt he had absorbed most of Elena's magic, he started to look for the alternative source of life he needed. He looked inside of himself, delving in the deepest part of his being until he found a small globe of pulsing light curled deep in his chest. Keeping his focus on syphoning Elena's magic, Damon grabbed the globe of light and start to pull. The pain he felt was excruciating, it felt like he was being ripped in half. He kept pulling though, and with a sudden jerk, the globe of light split in two. A small string of light connected the two globe, assuring that the two never really separated.

When he felt like there was close to no magic inside Elena, Damon took the second globe and started to push it inside her chest, the string stretching with the globe. The little ball of light posed no resistance, happily reaching toward its new home inside Elena's chest where it curled snuggly and laid roots.

Damon came back to himself and slowly opened his eyes, finding himself slumped over Elena's body. His face was pressed against her chest and he turned tiredly to look toward her face. He felt tired like never before, his eyes begging him to go to sleep for a year if necessary. But he couldn't; he needed to know if he had been successful.

Right when he started to fall into unconsciousness, he saw Elena's chest rise in a shallow breath, a soft thump-thump resonating against his ear.

He smiled a tired smile and closed his eyes.

I know another cliffhanger, I'm so evil! I hope the chapter was worth the wait! Thank you all!