Fifty-five
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"Wait a minute," Damon says, frowning as he straightens, "you're saying you didn't have your emotions on since you were thirteen?"
All vampires in the room are staring at Kai, understanding better than anyone to what extent this revelation could change everything they know about him, because they all found themselves in the position where they turned their feelings off and did terrible things. Elena, Caroline, Stefan… you can already read compassion all over their faces.
"Not exactly," Kai answers, as if he were discussing some ordinary spell with him. "It was temporary. It would take your feelings away for about a day, which was nice, but then, your most violent feelings would start rushing back first; feelings like anger and rage… they'd spin inside for a about an hour until the rest of your emotions would settle back, but during this hour, you'd get mad for anything; hence the violent scenes."
His voice is a whisper when he finishes; he's staring at the ground, clenching his jaw so as not to cry. Silence falls as they all give him a minute, understanding where he's going with that, and Jo is the first one to talk, "So… you did this to yourself several times?"
He nods, once. She looks back at the grimoire, changing her grip on it multiple times. She knows what he is about to explain, and she believes him already. They grew up together after all and it is all starting to make sense now. Besides, she's seen him since he got back from 1903, she's been trying not to think of it, trying to push the emotion away every time it felt like her brother was truly back. How many times did she have to remind herself of what he did to her family in order not to reach out or resume loving him? She knows this is true; and she has no idea how she's feeling about it exactly, nor how to react.
"Every time they'd say something… every time they'd ground me over stealing your magic, or when they'd tell the others to stay away from me–" his voice breaks and he has this powerless shrug that makes me want to take him in my arms. "I started using it on a regular basis and– I mean, I get now why they'd think me insane in addition of being a siphoner, with the changing moods and all but… they never tried to understand or– It only confirmed to them that I was some lost, crazy person, who wasn't fit to lead, who didn't even deserve to be there…"
He focuses on Jo's silent tears, and even Alaric closes his eyes, slowly shaking his head. Are they thinking of their future twins? Are they wondering whether they could even do that to one of them if he or she turned out to be a siphoner as well? Kai clears his throat.
"I stopped using it when we left for college and things got better. I was a normal guy, I was– just like you. I wasn't deranged and I wasn't evil. I'd go home very rarely, only to see the others and the twins when they were born, and most of the time it was only for a couple days, I could handle it. But even when I'd spend months without actually doing anything wrong, they'd say something or look at me like you're all used to doing by now and– sometimes it was too much. I was older, I knew it wasn't a good idea to go without emotions, I just– I didn't know what to do."
Elena is crying now, and I believe even Bonnie's cheeks aren't dry. Liv is staring at the grimoire, she won't look up, and I have no idea what is going on in her head.
"I couldn't wait for the merge to happen, because either Jo won and it'd be over anyway, or I won and, not only would I get powers of my own, but also I'd get to be coven leader… I mean, they'd have to acknowledge me as part of it, they'd see I was fit to lead and I'd be so good at it, just to prove them wrong, you know, just to show them that I wasn't that piece of trash they saw in me…" He wipes a tear away and swallows. He doesn't want to go through it; not aloud, not again; not in front of them. But he promised Luke.
"You and Lucas were too young to obey them when they'd tell you to stay away," he tells Liv, looking no higher than her knee, "Jo and I had just come back for the break and you were so excited to see us… When mom said she couldn't wait for the younger twins to merge, I snapped at her… Not in a crazy-witch way, just in a normal– broken-hearted way, I mean they couldn't just– take the merge from me, it was my only chance to be part of our family again and… We had the worst argument; dad wasn't even there to keep us from lashing out, and she said all these things to me, I– I went to my room and… when I was done crying, I cast the spell. I just– I just wanted to stop thinking about it for the night and get some sleep and– I'd drive back to campus the next day and they wouldn't hear from me anymore. But it didn't– It didn't go as usual." His eyes are closed now and tears keep rolling down his cheeks. "I don't know what went wrong, maybe it was the one time too many; maybe it could have happened sooner or the next time I used it… I felt nothing for about an hour, but then the anger rushed back and it just– locked. And I was– I didn't even realize I was trapped in it, not until my feelings came back after the merge. I was– nothing more than pure anger and resentment and… there was nothing inside that would make me stop, I–"
He buries his face in his hands, incapable of facing them now. He's said enough; they know. He can't hide anymore behind this image of the former villain who might start caring when he doesn't have better things to do, because now they know he never was one. He was this sad boy who kept making the same bad choice again and again, because he didn't want to feel unloved.
"So you didn't do it on purpose, that's what you're saying."
Liv's voice is hard, full of pain and anger, and her eyes are full of tears. He looks at her cautiously.
"I loved you, Olivia; I loved all of you. I just wanted to sleep without the pain, no one was supposed to get hurt."
"So it makes it okay that you killed our family?"
"No, of course, not–"
"Good. Cause it doesn't change anything to what you did."
"Actually, it does." Stefan's voice is calm, but firm. "It's one thing to know he killed your family, it's another thing to know it wasn't really him."
"But it was him. He did this."
"I'm a vampire, Liv. I know what it's like not to have your emotions on; you're not you anymore; everything that makes you a human being, any sort of compassion that keeps you from kicking a kitten or killing an old lady, it's all gone. I killed dozens of people, because I was thirsty and I couldn't stop drinking their blood," Stefan states, trying to make her understand.
"And he only killed four children, so we should just forgive him and be a happy family," she mocks, tears blurring her vision. She clutches my hand tighter and I squeeze.
"I don't expect you to ever forgive me; I'll never forgive myself either."
"Good."
"No one is minimizing what happened to your family, Liv, no one is saying it's nothing. But you have vampires here, and we all did terrible, terrible things when we didn't have our feelings to stop us."
"I killed more people than Kai ever did," Enzo whispers in agreement.
"I recently killed three persons," Caroline adds, nearly crying as well, "because I was bored."
"I killed a pregnant woman," Damon says in a low voice, "and she was family."
"I was a ripper for decades. And yet, we're all here; because we all know it's not something we'd do in normal circumstances; but it did happen, and it's not okay, but we have to live with it now; we each have to live with ourselves and with what we did." The blond witch glares at Stefan through her tears, and I can't tell whether she's calming down or not. "Of course your anger and your pain are legitimate, but knowing what really happened makes things more complex than just being guilty. None of us needs to be reminded of all the horrible things we did when we were basically sleepwalking; we have our own guilt and our own consciousness for that."
I could hug Stefan right now. I shouldn't be surprised to see him defend Kai, especially since he's been struggling for a long time to come to terms with his past as a ripper; but as much as I can tell he deeply understands the torments of being responsible while not being entirely responsible, I was not expecting him to speak out for my witch.
Jo remains silent, thinking and thinking, and Alaric won't say anything but he's known vampires long enough to understand that; and that's the key point. Kai doesn't even hope they'll forgive him, he's not asking for that because he knows it's not possible; what he did ruined too many lives, it destroyed his family; he is asking them to understand, to acknowledge that he wasn't always a lost cause and that he can be better in the future. He is asking them to accept him, with his loaded past of mistakes and regrets; he is asking them to be a part of our clan.
"You never asked what happened to mom," Liv tells him – accuses him. Kai closes his eyes again, guilty. He told me he saw her name in the family mausoleum when he went to see his siblings. She was buried with her children only a couple days after May 10th, and after some digging, he found in the local newspapers' archives that she'd killed herself. His greatest shame was when he confessed to me that even if he still resented her and his dad for unfairly taking back that unconditional love they had always given him, he'd let himself feel sad about it for a moment, and he'd cried. Because he still had this memory of her loving him when he was young, and all he wanted was for her to love him again.
"She killed herself after what you did." Liv is standing now, crying, but no one can stop her from pouring out as well what's been on her heart for so long, "Luke and I were four, and you'd already taken everything from us. We grew up without our siblings and we grew up without a mother, because of you. Dad was alone to raise us, because of you. His entire world collapsed when you cast that spell; he cried for so many years… you don't ever get to feel better about it."
I watch her storm out of the room, torn between staying here with him and going after her. When my eyes meet Kai's, he nods me to go with her and I do so. I'm not worried about leaving him with the others now, I'm pretty sure they won't give him a hard time about it.
Kai stands up as I step out of the room, and he tries to sound light when saying it'll be all for now. I don't get to see Jo rise to her feet and search his eyes with cautious hope, before taking him in her arms. I don't get to see him freeze with surprise, because he doesn't know what to do; she hasn't hugged him in decades, and for a moment he looks like a confused child and he can't even tell whether it soothes more than it hurts. He eventually wraps his arms around her, carefully, timidly, and closes his eyes. He draws a long, shaky breath, cherishing this contact more than he could tell. Everybody else leaves the room in order to let them cry.
.
.
I spot Liv under the tree, she's sitting at the edge of the woods behind the house. I sit down next to her and none of us speaks for a moment; she's still crying, though her eyes could murder anyone who tries to intercede. I prefer not to say anything for now, because I know this is hard on her, but I also very much want to yell at her for talking to Kai the way she did while he was exposing his greatest wound to them all. It almost physically hurts, to be so torn between the two of them.
"Is that what he told you when you were in 1903?" Her voice is quiet, but I can tell she's still angry. Angry that in addition of taking all these people from her, of taking me from her, he seems to have taken the only valid enemy. "Is that why you changed your mind about him?" When I nod, she turns her face to me. "And you believed him?" Half-disbelief, half-anger. How could I swing sides, that's what she's asking.
"What I didn't realize right away," I say, looking at the grass before us, "is that as soon as I saw part of Luke's Light in him, I couldn't hate him anymore. I could dislike him, despise him, but I couldn't hate him; because I'd be hating what's left of Luke." She follows my gaze on the grass, exhaling deeply. I don't speak for a while, remembering one of the earliest days in 1903:
"Busy having indecent thoughts about me?" The witch's voice summons me back to reality.
"I was actually wondering whether it would affect your coven if I were to kill you while we're stuck in this prison world."
"And here I was, thinking you just couldn't resist my charms and good-looks."
I snort. "Trust me, the smug ego and the hobby for murder help resist." His playful face falls.
"Could you– Would you mind not being mean to me while we're here?" he requests in a quiet voice.
"Is that a joke?" I deadpan. He doesn't answer right away, but slightly frowns.
"It's not real, is it?" I arch an inquiring brow at the softness in his tone. "This. You and me, we… we're not actually becoming friends, are we?"
"Is that a real question?"
He frowns some more, clearly at a loss. "But you act friendly–"
"Dude, you killed my closest friend and tried to kill all of our crew, me included. We can help each other out and joke around all you like while we're here, but there's no actual becoming friends or anything."
The blow lands, and once again he looks like I slapped him in the face. I gotta say it's pretty cool: I get to hit without risking to kill him. I should talk to him more often.
"But you're a hypocrite," he tries to object. "You're a witch hunter, you've killed people too; we're not that different from each–"
"I'm nothing like you," I spit. "You're right, I have killed. Dozens of times. I was fourteen when I killed for the first time. Not because it was fun and not because I wanted to, but because there are sick people like you who are so dangerous that if I don't take them out, then a hundred more people can die because of them. You stand for everything that I hate, and I couldn't despise you more than I do." His face is impassive but he swallows hard, and I believe tears are starting to gather in his eyes.
"I think you've said enough," he whispers, walking away.
"I was plainly awful to him, because like you, I thought he deserved to feel nothing except pain. I used to imagine ways to kill him, to make him suffer. But I didn't stop watching and assessing. He'd go sit by the fire during the night and cry for hours, and all I could think of was 'Good. You deserve this.'." I shake my head to myself, ashamed of the way I behaved with him when I didn't know the whole story. "We were stuck with each other for what could have been years, we…" I shake my head. "Some barriers fell. We started sharing, and when he did tell me what happened, it made me see things from a different perspective. I didn't grow up with you, Liv, I didn't share your family history… To you he was always the monster that ruined everything, and I get that it's hard for you to believe he could ever be something else–"
"And yet you care for him; you forgave him. Even Jo…" She trails off and shakes her head to herself. "Even Jo is on his side now."
"She's seen him a little more than you have recently," I say as softly as I can. "She's seen what he is now and she knew him before. She believes him because she knows him. It doesn't mean she'll forgive him, and it doesn't mean that you have to."
"She grew up with him… I mean, she went through this too, but she actually has good memories with him, she loved him before he cast that spell– I mean if they were anything like Luke and me, I get she'd want her twin back, I get it." Tears start pooling in her eyes again and she shakes her head. "But how am I supposed to accept this? How am I supposed to feel after that? I don't know him, I know nothing of him, except that he beat my brothers and sisters to death, and I sure as hell don't love him."
"He's not even asking for that, Liv. He was only explaining what really happened, so that you can live with him as your leader and actually believe him when he says he's gonna build a new Other Side or change the Gemini Constitution for the better. It hates thinking about what he did, because he knows it's all his fault, and it hurt him the entire time he was talking today. But he did it anyway, so that you would know he is up to no evil, so that maybe you'd understand."
"Well, I don't care what hurts him." Her voice is a whisper that sneaks all the way to my heart and clutches it. I remember how I liked seeing him suffer after Luke's death; the more hurtful things I would find to say, the better. She's still there, blaming the usual villain for taking one more family member from her.
"He cares about what hurts you," I simply say. "He took a risk when telling you–"
She snorts at that and wipes a tear. "It's not like I could kill him anyway."
"No, but he basically explained that it was accident, that he gets to live every single day knowing he destroyed his family because he wasn't strong enough to take the pain of being unloved by them. He didn't want any of this, no more than you did. It happened to him too. He could have let you believe he was evil or truly deranged, but he didn't. He chose to let you know how sorry he is, and how he'll never forgive himself for what he did. He took the risk of you knowing the truth and still seeing him as a monster, and that's what terrifies him; that despite knowing what happened, you'd still think he's not worth loving, that you'd choose to reject him as well."
She hugs her knees and buries her face in her jeans.
"But it's not fair," she cries. "He did it. I wish he hadn't told me."
"So you'd get to blissfully hate him?" I murmur. She doesn't answer but cries, and I pass my arm around her shoulders. Several minutes go by, during which I rub her back for comfort. I've been here before, wishing I could hate him and feel good about it, but my perspective on this can't compare with hers. "You never told me why you wear these rings," I say after a long while and she hides her hands. "You have your style and I never asked, but you always wear them, no matter what. All four of them." She clenches her jaw. "Kai also wears four," I add in a low voice. "Two on each hand. One for each of the siblings who died because of him that night. It's a reminder."
"Don't tell me we have something in common," she says with a spiteful wince, fiddling with her rings.
"He stored happy memories of each of them in his rings. I know you were too young to remember a lot about them but… maybe it's something he could share with you someday?"
"I don't want to share things with him," she whispers. "I don't want to betray my dad, or Luke, or all the others."
"I don't get to tell you about the others, or your dad, but you wouldn't betray Luke. In fact–" I bite my lip; I shouldn't be the one telling her this, Kai was supposed to tell her and Jo today. "Kai has something else to tell you."
She straightens and wipes her tears, sniffing.
"I think he's said enough for now."
"Liv–"
"No," she cuts, clear and unflinching. "I don't want to hear about any of this right now. I'm heading back to campus; whatever he has to say won't be for today." She rises to her feet, brushes the back of her jeans and goes to her car. I sigh and follow her; it's not my secret to tell.
When I get to Kai's place that night, I'm exhausted. Liv went to drink her pain away and I sort of followed her, fearing she'd get too drunk for her own good. I watched her all night, wondering what was going on in her mind. She basically spent her entire life believing Kai was deranged and hearing her dad blame it all on him; then she was depressed about the merge, kill your twin or be killed, then she met with Kai again, who entirely matched the description she'd heard her whole life, then she lost Luke and got to hate her older brother even more, and now… Now she finds out everything she thought she knew about him was wrong. How can she process that?
I took her home before she had too much to drink, and put her to sleep. Then I drove back to downtown McKinley and finally got to close that door behind me, resting my back against it just long enough to take a deep breath after today. I'm exhausted, but I can't wait to talk to him and comfort him after his day. And indeed, the very sight of him seems to partly recharge my batteries. He pulls me in for a hug as soon as I step into the living room, and we stay like that for a long time. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be, because somehow, being here, in his arms, it's where I belong.
We don't bother about dinner, we don't get comfortable on the couch for a movie or a video game or a reading night. We stand, together; survivors. He tells me about Jo's embrace and how it felt weirdly natural, like some old memory echoing from deep inside. He tells me how she whispered in his ear that she loved him and that she missed him. She was still cautious when she pulled away, but he thinks she might be willing to see past his mistakes someday, and that was a breath of fresh air and hope for him, and he loved it.
He also tells me how he apologized to Bonnie once more, and how she stared at him for the longest time, and said that she wasn't forgiving him, but acknowledged his apology. Again, relief and hope. Even Elena hugged him – which he didn't really like –, saying he was not irredeemable and they were all a proof of it. He tells me how he felt uncomfortable and vulnerable when they all turned this compassionate eye to him, but it hurt less than loathing and accusation; he thinks.
He also thanks me for being there; even though I wasn't holding his hand, he says I was a support to him and he couldn't have gone through it without me. My heart fills with love and hope, because I know he cares a lot about me, and one day he might actually love me back. I hold on to that, just as I hold on to him.
We lie awake in bed for a long time, talking about what he hasn't told them yet. I was right not to tell Liv, it should come from him. It might change how she sees him, it might help her accept him. Maybe.
I snuggle closer and close my eyes; he kisses my cheek, his arms around me. I love you, Kai Parker.
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Aster's quick word: Hi! Here's a quick word to thank you, readers! :hearts: Because after so many chapters, you're still around, and whether you review or read and keep your thoughts to yourself, I'm just so glad you like this story enough to still be there! (Just hang in there, it won't be very long until the end now ;) )
Of course, big thanks to NicCraft18, I love love LOVE reading your reactions! You, my friend, are the dream-reader :hearts hearts:
Other than that... I've been thinking more and more about the spin-off that I've had in mind for... quite a long time actually XD I haven't really started yet, but I feel like I might begin soon. Like, not this weekend because I'm going home for European Elections but the weekend after that... Who knows? ;)
Anyway, hope you've enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you think!
Best,
Aster
