Chapter Fifty-Five: Dog Slobber
Bonnie came around to see Elena a few days later, but immediately she was met with the impression that her best friend was actually just there to keep an eye on her. Elena had not really spoken to anybody since they had made the trip to Richmond, angry that they were all refusing to understand where she was coming from.
"We're going to find another way," Bonnie insisted as Elena sulked. They were sitting on her bed.
"And when Klaus gets wind of that you're all dead," Elena responded moodily. Bonnie sighed and reached into her bag and pulled out the moonstone, holding it up so that it's translucent surface caught the light.
"There's no reason Klaus will find out," Bonnie stated calmly, putting the moonstone down between them. Elena looked at it thoughtfully.
"Now that you've got it back, what are you gonna do with it?" She asked.
"Right now, it's what's binding the Sun and the Moon Curse. If I can figure out a way to remove the spell from the stone, the stone becomes useless." All Elena heard was the word 'if'. She was past feeling disturbed and freaked out by her part in the curse and now felt oddly peaceful about it all, accepting it as the only course of action.
"And according to Katherine, Klaus becomes vengeful," Anybody who could scare Katherine was somebody they should avoid getting on the wrong side of.
"Maybe," Bonnie answered mildly, "If he finds out."
"Bonnie, can't this wait? Stefan is stuck in the tomb, we've got to get him out!" Elena said emphatically.
"Stefan wants me to focus on this." Typical Stefan. Elena rolled her eyes.
"Don't listen to him. He thinks he's protecting me, but he's wrong," She had thought about going to visit Stefan and talk this over with him, but so far she had decided it against it. She didn't really want to talk about anything in front of Katherine, after all.
"I'm taking Stefan's side with this one," Bonnie replied firmly, "We're not gonna let you get used in some creepy sacrifice ritual." And so, Elena's one hope was gone. She knew that if Bonnie was willing to side with Stefan and Damon that she had no hope of any kind of support.
Jeremy was just as vocal in his denouncement of what he called Elena's 'suicide mission', and he told her so at every opportunity, including when Bonnie had left the room to get coffee. Jeremy shook his head at her in clear disappointment, something which made her stomach churn. She never wanted to hurt her younger brother, but she wanted him to be safe and as long as she was alive, he wasn't; none of them were.
It had not escaped her notice, however, that Bonnie had slid the moonstone back into her bag before leaving the room. Her mind still on Stefan, Elena had an idea. Quietly, once Jeremy's back was turned, she slipped the moonstone out of Bonnie's bag and into her pocket and grabbed her car keys.
"Where are you going?" Bonnie was at the bottom of the stairs as Elena began to make her way out.
"Um, to see Stefan," Elena replied.
"You're lying." She'd never been able to lie to Bonnie in all the years they'd been friends. Still, she had no choice.
"No, I'm not."
"Well, tell your face," Bonnie quipped. Elena bit her lip.
"She took the moonstone," Jeremy's voice joined the din, silencing Elena's further insistence that she was just going to pay a visit to Stefan. She turned to look at her brother, stumped. She had definitely been caught out now.
"How did you…?"
"We tested you, and you failed," Bonnie answered flatly.
So, Elena was trapped inside, a prisoner in her own home, just as much as Stefan was a prisoner in the tomb. She threw herself at the invisible magical barrier all over the house to no avail, until eventually she had to give up. For the moment, she was trapped.
Over the course of the day, she had a lot of time to stew, so by the time Damon arrived she had built up a head of steam.
"You should really lock your door," He quipped, as he stepped into the living room. Elena pulled a face. She couldn't get rid of him but she wished she could, "Oh come on pouty. At least give me points for ingenuity," Of course there had been no way Bonnie and Jeremy had come up with the plan to spell her inside on their own- Damon was the most unshakeable of them all in his quest to prevent her from doing what she thought was right.
"Do you think this is funny?" Elena snapped.
"Yes, I find hilarity in the lengths that I have to go to repeatedly save your life," He responded sarcastically. Elena continued to scowl. She had never once asked him to save her, after all.
"What does Stefan say about this?" Damon sighed, sitting himself lazily beside her on the couch and putting his arm around her carelessly. Even in the depths of her frustration, Elena felt the familiar tug of desire that she always felt whenever Damon was close to her. However, she staunchly ignored it.
"We had a good laugh about it," Damon said, with a slightly threatening air about him. Elena sighed and stood up, not wanting to be so near to him.
"And what did he say about Elijah being alive?"
"I didn't tell him."
It soon became clear that things were only going from bad to worse. There was no chance of Elena escaping with both Damon and Jeremy watching her and then, on top of that, Alaric called with the news that Mason Lockwood had been officially declared as a missing person. At this point, none of them had really thought about Mason for a while given everything else going on, despite the fact that tonight would be Tyler's first full moon as a werewolf.
"Apparently some girl from Florida turned up looking for Mason," Damon said grimly, once he'd hung up the call.
"What girl?" Elena asked the same question she had heard Damon ask on the phone to Alaric.
"Nobody knows, but I have to check this out," He looked over at Jeremy, "Your turn to babysit."
The day passed depressingly slowly. The sun beat down outside brightly and warmly and Elena started to wish she could just be out in it for the sake of it. She passed most of the excruciatingly boring hours in her room. She tried to read for a bit but when that couldn't occupy her, she gave up and headed downstairs, where she found Jenna rifling through the closet.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Elena asked her aunt, the only person she wasn't currently angry at.
"Perfect timing," Jenna said, thrusting a box into her arms. Elena took it, confused.
"What is this stuff?" There seemed to be a bunch of files and papers inside.
"Your mom's files from the Historical Society. I got roped into helping Mrs Lockwood and by roped I mean very excited to participate," Jenna quipped sarcastically. Elena couldn't help but chuckle at her aunt's predictable sardonic reaction to any overly pious town events. Her smile fell from her face, however, when Jenna closed the closet door to reveal Elijah standing behind it. Elena froze but then, prompted by Elijah's pointed look and greeting, she forced herself to act naturally in front of her aunt.
"Hey, I'm Elijah," He greeted her.
"Elijah's in town doing research on Mystic Falls," Jenna informed her.
"It's a pleasure," Elena managed to say, as Elijah came closer to her and held out his hand. They shook hands and Elena felt a prickle of nerves and fear run down her spine. Although she wanted to hand herself over to Klaus and Elijah was probably the only way of doing that, she was still alarmed to realise an Original had been invited into her home.
"So you're welcome to stay here and rummage through this stuff, or Elena and I could help you load it into your car," Jenna offered in a friendly way.
"Or I can get someone to pick it up tomorrow," Elijah suggested politely in return.
"Also a good plan," Jenna agreed.
"Thank you so much for inviting me into your home Jenna. Elena…" He added, looking at her meaningfully, "I hope to see you again sometime soon." Swallowing and fighting to control her breathing, Elena waited until the front door closed behind Elijah before bolting up the stairs. She banged on Jeremy's door but even as she did that, she felt him grab her wrist. Scared, Elena tried to shake him off, but then Jeremy opened his bedroom door.
"What is it?" Her brother asked. Elena glanced at where Elijah was hiding beside the door, motioning at her not to reveal his presence.
"Jenna was just asking me to get you to help with the boxes," Elena was relieved that her words came out fairly convincingly and not garbled and panicked. Jeremy heeded what she said and headed downstairs, leaving her alone with the Original vampire. Taking a deep breath, Elena beckoned Elijah to her room, where she closed the door behind them. He looked around with some interest at his surroundings, taking in everything, before he turned to speak to her.
"Forgive the intrusion. I mean your family no harm," He informed her simply. He seemed very calm and yet purposeful at the same time. Something about the way he spoke made Elena believe his words, although he still made her nervous.
"Why did you kill those vampires when they tried to take me?" It hadn't made any sense to her at the time and she hadn't been able to figure it out since. Nobody had seemed very interested in discussing it with her, either.
"Because I didn't want you to be taken," Elijah replied, "Klaus is the most feared and hated of the Originals, but those that fear him are desperate for his approval. If word gets out that the doppelganger exists there'll be a line of vampires eager to take you to him and I can't have that." Elena frowned. Although there was something about Elijah that made him seem sincere, something also didn't ring true.
"Isn't that what you're trying to do?"
"Let's just say that my goal isn't to break the curse."
"Then what is your goal?" What Elena heard next left her reeling, but it fit into place. Elijah wasn't trying to have her killed, he revealed; he was using her to lure Klaus out of hiding and then he was going to kill him. But the integral part of his plan was that Elena had to remain where she was.
"Elena," Elijah said, "I am willing to make you a deal."
The bright full moon in the sky told Damon that it was time for him to get inside. If Tyler Lockwood got loose, his life may be at stake.
So, he had located the girl who was looking for Mason; her name was Jules, and she was a werewolf. He and Alaric had tried to lure her out with wolfsbane, assuming it would work as vervain did on them, but she hadn't taken the bait. He was thinking solely about werewolves as he drove home from the Grill, refusing to think any more about Elena's plans to allow herself to be used to break the curse.
When he arrived home, he closed the door behind himself and then hesitated before turning around and, for the first time in a long time, locking it behind himself. Sighing, he headed into the library, needing a nice blood-bag, when he found himself faced with Rose.
"You just can't stay away, can you?" Although part of him hadn't blamed her, he had felt a little betrayed when she had simply fled at the sight of Elijah, knowing that he and Elena were probably going to end up dead. It didn't matter that it hadn't worked out that way- it was just that Rose had, somehow, come to be counted among his friends. She had certainly been a lot of help to them all and, he admitted deep down, a comfort to himself. She wholeheartedly supported his love of Elena, after all, and given how badly things had been going between them, Rose was pretty much all he had
"You don't answer your phone," Rose replied. He had noticed her calls but he had been too angry to speak to her.
"What do you want?" He snapped.
"I wanted to apologise," She said, a little beseechingly.
"Just admit it- you don't have anywhere else to go," Damon taunted meanly.
"I'm sorry about Elena. I wasn't thinking straight, I didn't know that she had a death wish- but I called you. I tried to make it right, okay? I'm sorry Damon. And," She sighed, "I have nowhere else to go." He looked across at her for a moment, debating whether to forgive her or send her packing, when the sound of glass smashing in the living room distracted them.
He and Rose rushed to the living room. At first there was no sign of any damage, but then, with a great shuddering, the window broke into smithereens as a wolf leapt through the glass. Barely having time to think, Damon seized one of the swords hanging on the wall- probably a genuine antique as opposed to just being decorated- and made a swing for the wolf, which was lunging for him. Then, quickly, Rose was shoving him out of the way. The wolf connected with her rather than him then and sank its teeth into her shoulder. Damon stabbed at it with the sword. Howling in pain, the wolf rolled across the floor and then jumped back out the window just as suddenly as it'd come.
Damon stood in the silence for a second, looking at all the glass shards lying across the floor, but then he remembered and dropped the sword, bending down beside Rose, who looked scared. The wound in her shoulder was nasty looking.
"How bad is it?" Damon asked her, his anger forgotten.
"It hurts," Rose groaned. Damon looked at the bite more closely. Before his eyes, the wound began to fuse back together, healing. When he told Rose this, she grabbed his arm, her eyes welling up. "Oh my god, I thought a werewolf bite was fatal…." She choked out, "I thought…" The first sob escaped her. Damon hated crying women, but he would allowed her to cry for this; he had thought exactly the same thing when he saw the wolf sink its teeth into her. So rather than tell her to pull herself together or walking away, Damon hugged her.
When daybreak came, Damon called Caroline. The blonde answered his call on the first ring.
"How did it go?" He asked her immediately.
"It went… well, Tyler isn't exactly okay, but he will be," He rolled his eyes at the idea that Caroline thought he cared about Tyler Lockwood's wellbeing.
"Did he escape?" He asked bluntly.
"No… no, why?" Obviously something in his voice had alerted her to the fact that there was a problem.
"A wolf got in here last night and bit Rose- she's okay, it seems like the whole werewolf bite being fatal for us isn't true- but if Tyler didn't escape then…"
"There's another wolf in town?" Caroline asked, sounding alarmed.
"Yeah. Her name is Jules and she came here looking for Mason."
"Nobody tells me anything!" Caroline complained, "Well, anyway, Tyler didn't get out so it has to have been her."
"Right. Thanks, Care," He added, shutting off the call, his brain whirring. Rose returned to the room then wearing a bathrobe, having previously announced that she needed to wash the 'dog slobber' off herself.
"So it was Jules," Rose concluded, after he'd explained his conversation with Caroline.
"Yeah. I picked a fight with her, I'm sorry. She was coming after me," He told her.
"All's well that ends well," She indicated her shoulder, "It seems to have healed." Damon smiled, relieved. His face struggled to move the muscles, given how long it'd been now since he'd had a real reason to smile. It was times like these where it'd be so easy to just flip the switch… Rose was watching him. "You should get yourself a punch-bag of some sort," She told him.
"What for?"
"To get out all those pent up frustrations," She smirked. Damon raised his eyebrows.
"I can think of better ways of doing that," He said suggestively. Rose's mouth twitched but she gave him a reproving look.
"You know if you'd tried that line on me the first night I came here it might have worked," She informed him, "But you missed the boat, my friend. Nope, I am here to assist you with operation get-Elena-back now."
"Do I even want her back?" He asked flippantly.
"Are you listening to yourself?" Rose replied. He sighed, running his hand through his hair. He needed to sleep and he needed to get away from all of this insanity.
"Look, the girl has some sort of death wish and the only way to stop her from getting it is to keep her under lock and key- it's hardly helping my case, Rose," He added heatedly.
"At least she's alive. She will appreciate that one day." He gave a helpless laugh and reached over to pat her on the shoulder.
"Let's hope we all live to see that day," He joked, but the words died in his throat as Rose winced in pain as he touched her.
"That hurt," She murmured, cringing. It was the same shoulder that Jules had bitten which appeared to have healed. Slowly, Damon reached over and carefully pushed the bathrobe out of the way. Rose's skin underneath appeared blistered and diseased where she had been written, and the gangrene looked to be spreading. All of their relief vanished; what if the rumours about werewolf bites had been true after all?
"I still don't like this." Elena had convinced Elijah to let Stefan out of the tomb in exchange for her good behaviour- that was, to do nothing and wait for Klaus to come and find her so that Elijah could kill him. It was a dangerous plan but it was an agreement nonetheless- one that would keep her and her friends safe if she adhered to it- and that was the most important thing to Elena, so she planned to stick to it by the letter.
"Stefan, everything is right with the world now. Katherine is locked in the tomb…" She sighed, walking around his room at the boarding house. She had rarely, if ever, been in here and it was strange how different he was to Damon. Damon's belongings were selective and sparse, whereas Stefan kept everything that was important to him in this room.
"You're still Klaus' little human sacrifice," Stefan reminded her.
"Yes, but Elijah is keeping me and everyone else safe." She put down the book she had picked up to look around at him.
"Katherine said Isobel might know something," Stefan began, not for the first time. He had filled her in on everything Katherine had said in that tomb as they had driven back from it. Elena shook her head and opened his bedroom door, calling across the hallway.
"Damon!" He was slow to respond to his name and when he emerged from his room, he looked dishevelled and tired. Elena produced the vervain she had brought around and waved it at the Salvatore brothers.
"Damon, this was Stefan's idea and you don't have to do it. But Elijah compelled Katherine, and if he can compel other vampires…" Damon looked over at his brother.
"Katherine built up a tolerance so I figure it's worth a try," Stefan shrugged. Damon said nothing, just accepted his glass of vervain water. He and Stefan coughed and spluttered as they ingested the herb, but neither of them stopped. Damon didn't really look at Elena; he seemed very distracted by something.
"Isobel is the only one who might know what it means to be an Original," Stefan continued as Damon exited the room, "We have to ask her. Elijah might stick to his deal or he might not, but either way we're no match for him at all if we don't know anything about his nature- and that goes for Klaus too."
A/N: Another chapter! Reviews would be very welcome so please leave me some!
