Chapter Fifty-Four: Crazy Kamikaze

Alice took a while to stop crying. She had been Slater's girlfriend and the sight of his staked course had upset her, understandably. Elena, however, mainly felt frustrated that her only possible connection to Klaus was gone. Still, she had lost enough people by now to have compassion. She was just making tea when Rose returned to the main room of Slater's apartment. She took a seat beside Elena.
"She found him a few minutes before we did," Rose informed her.

"How is she?"

"Overreacting," Rose replied, "Big time."

"Her boyfriend just died, there's no such thing as overreacting." Elena could only imagine how she'd feel if Damon died…

"Those tears are for her. She didn't care about Slater- she was only dating him long enough to see if he would turn her," Rose looked very distasteful as she explained this. Elena just shrugged and picked up the tea, carrying it through to Alice, who looked at her curiously as she sat down.

"You look really familiar… Did you know Slater?" Alice asked her.

"Not personally no. I only knew that he kept detailed records of all his vampire contacts and was hoping he could point me towards Klaus," Elena supposed that she would be safe to tell a human about Klaus- especially one who may be able to help her. It was a little strange, meeting another human who was knowingly caught up in the tumultuous vampire world.

"Doubtful. Klaus doesn't want to be pointed at," Alice said frankly.

"Do you know Slater's computer password?" It seemed ridiculous to be thwarted by this technology.

"Are you seriously asking me that right now? I just saw my boyfriend with a stake through his heart!" But after what Rose had said, Elena could see through Alice's veneer. While it was obviously true that she'd cared about Slater in some capacity, it was just shock that was making her cry.

"I understand that. Do you know his password?" She persisted.

"Who do you think you are?" As Alice sipped her tea, Elena wondered how she was going to get her to talk. She was the only hope she had of tracking Klaus down, or at least getting his attention. She hadn't exactly told Rose her whole plan but she knew it was only a matter of time before it became obvious. It was as she thought of Rose that the idea came to her.

"What if I could convince Rose to turn you?" Rose looked over at her, obviously having no intention of doing this, "Will you show us his files then?" Of course, it worked. Alice made a show of sniffing and pulling herself together but it wasn't long before she had logged into Slater's computer and was tapping away, while Rose and Elena stood behind, watching. However, all searches turned up negative; it became clear quickly that all the files had been deleted.

"Someone's been here," Alice said, "The hard-drive's been completely wiped." Elena and Rose looked at each other.

"Yeah, probably whoever killed him," Rose stated the obvious. Elena felt her stomach clench and she had to turn away; her last hope was gone. Now everybody she cared about, including herself, was most likely going to end up dead.

"Lucky for you, Slater was paranoid. Everything's backed up on a remote server," Alice informed them. And Elena's heart began to beat faster again. As Alice went about accessing the backed up files, Rose moved closer to whisper in Elena's ear that Alice wasn't getting anywhere near her blood.

"I know. She doesn't." Rose smiled at this lie. Elena sat down beside Alice, who took them through a few of the code names of Slater's contacts, including one with which he had shared many emails about Elijah with. Alice readily suggested that she could call him. Elena gritted her teeth, glancing at Rose; it was now or never.
"Tell him that we're trying to send a message to Klaus. The doppelganger is alive and she's ready to surrender."

Predictably, Rose took Elena's plan badly, but she seemed to accept it. After all, what else was she going to do? Allow everybody else to die just so she could live? It was one thing being saved when it was only she who was truly in danger, but she was not prepared to put all of her friends and family's lives on the line for her own. It wasn't fair on them and this was the only way Elena could see to put an end to it all. She stood watching out of a window for a while, not really seeing what was on the other side of it. She was in almost a dream-like state. She had scraped death before but this time she had chosen it and she felt strangely about her choice. It went against her instincts to survive, after all…

Elena blinked. In the reflection of the glass she thought she saw somebody walking towards her… It looked like… Elijah, the Original? But he was dead. And yet, he looked so real, so close and so solid… Elena span around, half-expecting to find him standing right behind her, but there was nobody there.

She returned to the main room of the apartment. Alice was sat there, looking nervous and excited. Elena tried to think of something to say but she couldn't, so she turned to leave the room again but got the momentary fright of her life when she found herself face-to-face with Damon.
"What are you doing here?" He demanded.

"What are you doing here?" Elena returned, but then Rose entered the room and it fell into place; of course she wasn't going to allow Elena to carry out her plan in peace. "You called him?"

"I'm sorry, Elena," Rose shrugged.

"You said that you understood," Elena had to admit she was a little bit hurt by Rose's intervention- she thought she had made a connection with the vampire today, that they had found an understanding given all of this surrounding Slater, but she had been wrong.

"She lied," Damon pointed out unnecessarily. Elena was too busy glaring at him to notice that Alice had approached them, looking mesmerised by Damon.

"Damon Salvatore!" She cried, sounding awestruck, but Damon waved her away.

"Get rid of her!" He fired at Rose. Rose complied and dragged a protesting Alice out of the room, leaving Damon alone with Elena. They glared at each other for a moment and Elena was wrestling with the twin urges of wanting to kiss him and to kill him. He would never understand why she was doing this- he would refuse to understand, in fact, and do everything he could to get in her way, even if it meant that he would end up dead,

"Come on," Damon snapped, "We're leaving." Elena refused.

"I'm not going with you," She insisted.

"You do not get to make decisions anymore." She was actually taken aback by him grabbing her arm and yanking her with him as easily as if she weighed nothing. He wasn't even being particularly gentle, which was unusual for him and the way he would normally handle her.

"This is my decision, Damon! I know you want to save me but I don't want to be saved!" He wasn't listening to her. Elena planted her feet, giving enough resistance to make Damon look back at her and then stop, though he did not let go of her wrist, which she was sure would bruise under his grip soon.

"You get your ass out that door before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you out there myself." His tone was deadly level and serious, and she knew he would do it. He was angry enough not to care whether or not he hurt her. But Elena felt a surge of her own fury- anger and frustration that he could thwart her plan so easily, that they would all work against her wishes to protect her and therefore end up dead themselves- it was too much. Blindly, she threw all her weight behind her other fist, aiming for him. She had never wanted to hurt Damon before but she had to take this out on somebody!

Damon caught her fist in his hand and gripped it tightly, threatening to crush the bones in her hand as he stepped in towards her. Elena had never been afraid of Damon before but something in his ice blue eyes then was brutal, powerful and dangerous. She felt cold. His face began to change, the veins around his eyes getting darker and standing out against his skin as the pupils blackened and his eyes became bloodshot. Elena cowered from him and he let her go, staring her down for a minute, before his face returned to normal.

"We are leaving here." She knew whatever he had wanted to say had been much worse, but Damon held it in. Instead, he walked past her back into the apartment. Elena followed him on trembling legs.


The girl, Alice apparently, was all over him from the second he re-entered the room that Rose was keeping her in. Damon was angry and hurt enough to kill and he did not have much patience for the human girl's excitement, but he took her through to the bedroom, where he compelled her to have a dreamless sleep and forget everything that had happened. He told Elena and Rose as much when he returned to the living room where they were waiting. Elena had seemed genuinely afraid of him, a feeling he did not like- his vampire instincts made him enjoy scaring people, usually, as it made the hunt more thrilling, but Elena was not and never had been his prey.

Before the three of them could get anywhere, however, the front door burst open and three men entered the apartment, none of them familiar.

"We're here to meet the doppelganger," One of them announced.

"Thank you for coming," Elena chipped in, making to head over to them. Damon shoved her back before she got more than a couple of steps towards them though.

"I will break your arm," He hissed, meaning it, "There's nothing here for you." He addressed the man that had spoken, whoever he was. But at that, one of the vampires, standing slightly behind the man who had spoken, dropped dead, and then something whirled towards them. But before that, there was a frozen moment in time when Damon saw the person responsible; it was Elijah, the Original. When he stopped in front of them, Rose started; she vamped out of the apartment in the blink of an eye.

"I killed you," Damon blurted out, "You were dead." He had nailed him to a door with a stake through his heart, how could anybody be more dead than that?

"For centuries now," Elijah quipped dryly, with a flourish. "Who are you?" He questioned the man who had spoken to them before. Damon had assumed he was Elijah's minion, but apparently not.

"Who are you?" The man returned.

"I'm Elijah," The two magic words which caused fear.

"We were gonna bring her to you," The first guy said immediately, "For Klaus. She's the doppelganger. I don't know how she exists, but she does. Klaus will want to see her," He was babbling on, clearly afraid. Elijah was impossible to read though, as he remained perfectly composed.

"Does anyone else know that you're here?" He asked in a measured voice.

"No."

"Well, then you have been incredibly helpful." Before anybody could blink, Elijah shoved his hands into both of the remaining vampire's chests. They grunted as he yanked their hearts out through their chest before falling uselessly to the floor, dead. Elijah unceremoniously dropped their hearts to the floor after their owners. Damon steeled himself, waiting for the inevitable fight that he was going to face with the Original himself, but then Elijah simply turned and vamped out of the apartment without another word. He was left alone with Elena, the silence ringing in their ears. He had left them alone, but why? Damon didn't give himself time to think about it. He looked over at Elena.

"Let's go," He said, and this time she didn't argue. She got into the passenger seat of his car, given that Rose had taken Elena's, and for a while neither of them spoke. Damon wondered how the plan with Katherine in the tomb had worked out without him there. He'd never explained to Stefan where he was going but he knew his brother would understand if he knew what Elena had tried to do.

"You shouldn't have interfered," Elena mumbled after a while.

"I disagree," Damon retorted.

"And you shouldn't have threatened me," She added.

"What are you gonna do about it?" He snapped, but when she winced he felt terrible. He had lost control of his temper with her and had scared her to her bones. He never wanted to make Elena feel like that but he had been so angry and so miffed that she would do that without even mentioning it to him. Without even trying to say goodbye.
"I'm sorry," He said, after a pause.

"No," Elena replied softly, "I get it. I hurt you." He couldn't look at her when she said that. It was true, that was how he felt. They lapsed back into silence but by that time it wasn't so far to Mystic Falls. Damon dropped Elena off at her house and walked her to her porch.

"Thank you for dropping me home," She sighed, looking at him sadly.

"Well your ride left you. I didn't want to leave you stranded," Damon shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant even though they both knew it wasn't true.

"She was just scared. She didn't mean to run," Elena said about Rose.

"Yes she did. She's been running for five hundred years," He reminded her, though he supposed he didn't really blame Rose. She had not long been free of being hounded by the Originals for allowing Katherine to escape Klaus.

"I can't believe Elijah's alive," Elena mused, why do you think he killed those vampires and let us go?" Now that they were back home, Damon supposed they had to begin the questioning process. How was Elijah alive? Were the Originals really that different from ordinary vampires or was there more to it than that?

"If I had a dollar for every time some evil vampire surprised me," He joked, because he didn't know the answer to these questions any better than she did. Not so long ago, Elijah had been keen to get his hands on Elena and hand her over to his brother, Klaus. Why the change of heart? Something just didn't add up about this. Elena turned towards the door but Damon caught her by the arm, spinning her back around to face him, but she hissed in pain. He looked down and saw that he had bruised her wrist earlier when he'd grabbed her. He suddenly felt sick and he let her go, his resurgence of sudden anger ebbing.

"I'm really sorry that I scared you, Elena," If she didn't accept his apology he would never be able to forgive himself. She had been in danger of him for the first time and he was supposed to be protecting her.

"Damon…" She looked up at him hesitantly. He knew what she was going to say; that they weren't together, they couldn't have these moments, the moments that meant everything to him… So before she could speak, he cut her off by kissing her.

Elena was frozen for a moment, taken by surprise, and he wondered if she would push him away. If she did, he would of course leave, but she surrendered instead, kissing him back. He felt himself shudder at her warmth as he pulled her close. He had missed this more than anything else, the feeling that she was really his. When they broke apart, both of their breathing was heavy. Damon didn't let go of Elena's waist.

"I love you," He told her, "Never do anything so stupid ever again." She was staring back into his eyes but he saw the same glimmer of sadness as before in hers.

"I don't question why you and Stefan and everyone else tries so hard to save me. You shouldn't question why I would save all of you." He thought about this for a minute and Elena used the momentary pause to extract herself from him, about to turn towards the door, but he responded:

"But I do question when you started giving up so easily. That's not the Elena I know." He knew he had surprised her by saying that, because she turned around with a shocked expression on her face. But at that moment, the front door opened and Jeremy was standing there. His gaze went over Elena's head and to Damon, and his expression told him immediately that something was wrong.

"What?" Damon asked quickly.

"It's Stefan."

So, Stefan was stuck in the tomb. Elena and Damon sped towards Fell's Church. She jumped out of the car almost before it had stopped moving and ran towards the ruins of the church, down the steps to the tomb, calling Stefan's name. Damon got out of the car, closed the doors and vamped after her, arriving just in time to pull her back as she was about to try and enter the tomb herself. He held her against the wall of the tomb and she struggled uselessly against his strength.

"Don't you dare," He warned through gritted teeth.

"Stefan's in there, Damon!" She cried blindly at him, "How could you let this happen?"

"What are you talking about? I was busy saving you from your crazy kamikaze mission!" He glared at her.

"You didn't even have to go after the moonstone in the first place!" Damon resisted the urge to scream out loud in frustration and instead managed to muster up some control over his voice.

"It was the right call, Elena," He told her firmly.

"How was any of this the right call?" Clearly distraught, she began beating her fists against his chest, screaming at Damon to let go of her, but he ignored her protests, keeping still and calm. Eventually she would get tired and then he could get her out of here. He was right, although it took a while- Elena eventually stopped struggling and she looked up at him desperately: "Please," She pleaded.

"Are you done?" He released her from his grip, backing up a couple of steps. Predictably, Elena immediately made a move towards the tomb again, but he stepped in front of her, blocking the way. "Don't." Elena recognised this as a final order and cried out in frustration before storming away. Damon breathed, letting her go, and heard the sound of quiet movement behind him. He turned and Stefan was approaching the entrance.
"Of all the idiot plans, Stefan," He said to his brother. They shouldn't have put so much faith into Bonnie's magic.

"Yeah," Stefan agreed tiredly.

"I'll find a way to get you out." If Damon had been in Stefan's position he probably would have already broken Katherine's neck twelve times.

"Ah, it's alright," Stefan sighed, "I'll handle myself. Bonnie has the moonstone- work with her. Try to figure out how to de-spell it." Damon looked at his younger brother for a long moment.

"You martyr yourself in a tomb and I get partnered with a semi-competent witch. Wonderful," He added sarcastically, feeling a little disgusted with the way everything had planned out today. It had truly been a nightmare from start to finish- other than kissing Elena, of course.

"Keep Elena away from here," Stefan told him, as if he needed telling. Elena was clearly not thinking straight these days and the last thing they needed was a very human Elena being locked up in a tomb with a starving Katherine.

"I'll protect her, Stefan. You know that." Stefan nodded. They had reached an understanding about Elena and with that, the brothers had finally begun to rebuild the relationship they had lost due to the very woman Stefan was now imprisoned with. Damon nodded in return to his brother and then departed, but not before he heard Katherine's voice from the depths of the tomb:

"You'll never win the girl that way, Stefan."


A/N: So we got to see a little more of angry, bloodthirsty Damon in this chapter. I hope you liked it, please drop me some feedback if you have time :)