The Heist

"You need to stop procrastinating and do this."

"Why?" Liv muttered, grouchily, wedging her phone under her chin as she shoved her library books in her bag. She checked around at her empty dorm room, out of habit. This wasn't exactly a conversation to have with roommates around. "It's not like the fate of the world is resting on my shoulders or anything."

"Because the longer it takes for you to pay your respects to our new leader, you know the person who might actually be carrying the fate of the world on her shoulders, who just happens to be your sister… the more awkward it gets."

"I'm good with awkward."

"Liv-"

"She took off, Luke! Left us to Dad and a house full of corpses and went to live her life. Left us to merge and die. Awkward is me being courteous."

"She saved our lives."

There was a long pause. "You mean my life."

Luke sighed. "Not this again."

"Admit it, Luke. I was always going to lose. That's why Dad came to see me on our birthday first. He came to say goodbye."

"Olivia-"

"That's what you were trying to do that night, weren't you? You were going to merge with Kai. You knew I didn't have a chance in Hell to win. So you were going to pull a Hail Mary with our siphocant brother."

"That's… a nice pun," Luke said weakly.

Liv laughed bitterly. "Gee, thanks you bastard!"

"Hey!"

"How the hell do you think I'd have felt if you had died merging with Kai? If – no, when you lost to him. Or if our creepy coven Foundation magic had been offended by your stunt and killed you? What do you think that would have done to me? Knowing you were dead because of me?" And goddamit, she would not cry. But she still woke up to this nightmare and now she was slumping on the floor, book bag and all and damn both her brothers, their sister, father, and their entire coven to Hell for almost making her go through this.

"I'm not dead, Liv. Look… I can't talk to you like this on the phone. You're in your dorm, right? Wait for me. I'll be right over."

"And do what, Luke?" She said, bitterly, tiredly. "Pinkie swear never to try to die for me again? We're not kids anymore, Luke! We can't just spit in our palms and shake on it."

"Don't remind me." He chuckled as if this was funny.

Liv saw red. "Go to Hell, Luke Parker!"

She turned off the phone and threw it on her bed. It started ringing immediately. She picked it up, turned off the sound, and threw it back on her bed. For the next four minutes, she withstood the annoying buzzing noise before she snatched up the phone.

"Luke, I swear-"

"Not your twin. Or brother. Or anyway related to you, at least I hope not."

She pulled the phone back to stare at the name. "Damon? What the hell do you want?"

"Actually," he said, his voice drawling and dangerous. "The real question is… what do you want me to do-"

"Damon," she said, making her voice just as dangerous, "I am not in the mood for your games."

"-to a certain someone. Turn on your video, Livvie. There's someone here you'd like to meet."

"So you see why you have to help me with this, right?"

Alaric glared at Damon over his mug. "You've been rambling on and on for half an hour, and I still haven't heard how helping you steal the 1903 Ascendant is going to help me fix my relationship with Jo."

Damon sat up, raising his forefinger triumphantly. The unfamiliar lapis lazuli ring glittered in the dim light of the deserted bar. "A-ha! So you admit that your relationship is on the rocks."

Alaric scowled, and downed the drink.

"Ric," Damon whined, "I get it. Your main squeeze got a promotion at work. Promotion to uber-powerful magical leader of ancient secret coven, but details, right? She's got her hands full with new responsibilities, extra office hours, hiring, firing, the works. I'll take a wild guess that your sex life has gone down the toilet, right?"

"Shut up, Damon."

Not exactly a denial. "So let's help her out a little. Get this one thing off her hands. We get the Ascendant, pay my mom a little prison visitation. Get out. No one's the wiser."

"You promise you're not letting out the ripper?"

Damon's gaze shifted over Alaric's receding hairline. "Why would I want to do a crazy thing like that? I've got my hands full with one ripper relative. I just want to ask the old woman a few questions, that's all. If you had a chance to resurrect your dead mom and get some pearls of wisdom, won't you?"

"Shut up, Damon."

"OK, we'll unpack that later. Forget about moms, let's talk about your lady. If I'm not bugging her about the Ascendant any more, then she'll be less mad at you."

Alaric sighed. "How are we even going to steal the Ascendant in the first place? She doesn't exactly keep them at home."

"These things are like prison keys, Ric. She's going to have them at hand, trust me."

"And how do we get them? Remember a little thing called Cloaking Magic? Last time I checked, only a Gemini witch could work through those, and Jo's not exactly…"

Damon's grin was so wide, it almost split his face. "I gotta admit, that one stomped me for a bit. Then I remembered Jo has siblings! And by siblings, I mean a sister. And by a sister, I mean Tyler Lockwood's main squeeze." He crooked his finger towards his face, admired the shiny new ring. "Wonder how I got this baby back so fast? Turns out that vampires do work better at night."

Alaric's stomach turned slightly queasy, but maybe it was just the alcohol on an empty tank. "I thought you got Bonnie-"

For the first time that evening, Damon's unflappable grin wavered and something a little like anger, a little like hurt, broke through. "Yeah, Bonnie's having a thing right now. I'm being a good buddy and giving her space."

Alaric scoffed.

"Thankfully with a little incentive, I got a temp Witch Friday. Not as good as a Bennett, but pretty handy, especially with the right motivation." Damon pulled his phone out of his back-pocket and tossed it to Alaric.

Warily, Alaric picked it up and blanched at the image open in the Photos app. "This is sick, even for you."

"Oh come on," Damon chuckled. "He'll be fine. Werewolves have super healing, you know."

"Tyler isn't triggered anymore."

"Then we'll get him to the best doc in town." He chuckled. "See? Everything comes up Josie."

Jo was on night-shift so her elegant little home was empty. Liv paced the porch, heaved her satchel against her hip and checked her watch, trying and failing not to think about her ex-boyfriend and whatever horrors he was undergoing right now.

The moment the blue Camaro pulled up and the two men stepped out, she ran to Damon with fingers clawed. "Where's Tyler?" she screamed, shooting aneurysm after aneurysm into him.

Alaric grabbed her, pinning her arms down until she let up. "Easy there, Olivia, easy!"

"Where is he?" she snarled.

Damon grinned like a maniac. "He'll be fine as long as you do what you're told."

"You said you just wanted a ring. I did that already!"

"I said I just wanted a favour. Think of this as one long continuous favour."

"How long? How long, Damon?"

"Let's get this done then we'll negotiate-"

Alaric's grip had loosened, and she threw another aneurysm at Damon that pushed him down to his knees.

"Gonna… take… this… out… on… your boo…" He ground out.

"Stop it!" Alaric shouted. "Both of you! Liv, let him go. Damon, stop antagonizing her. Let's get this done before Jo's shift is over."

"I'm not taking one step in that house until he tells me where Tyler is!"

"Damon, where is Tyler?"

The vampire straightened up. Smirked. It was all Liv could do not to make his face stay that way permanently. "That's not how this works. She does what I say. When I say. Or else-"

"Damon," Alaric ground out. "No."

"Or what?"

"I'm not dating Tyler Lockwood and I will not go along with this if you don't let him go right now."

Damon actually looked surprised. "You're really going to let the kid get hurt. Or die."

Alaric glared. "This is Mystic Falls. Death is something you walk off."

Damon considered, then shrugged. "Fine. But after one more favour-" he raised his hand, shutting off what Liv was about to say. "I'll need a witch to take us to 1903 and back. Bonnie's still not taking my calls, so it's going to be you, Liv."

She wanted to argue. The last thing she needed was to cross Jo even further. She had thought replacing the Daylight Ring that Jo destroyed was bad enough until Damon roped her into this magical heist. But entering a Prison World? That Jo had already refused to consider, even for Alaric?

Big sister or not, the Praetor Magus of the Gemini Coven was not someone you messed with.

But Alaric was nodding as if this was a perfectly reasonable demand. What the heck was going on with him and Jo that he was helping Damon steal from her? Liv had no idea, nor did she want to.

"Fine," she grounded out. "Let's get this over with."

Alaric had a key, and the wards let him in, something he seemed to be half-surprised by. Liv filed that in for mental trash. The less she knew about the sordid details of her History Professor and her long-thought-dead sister, the better.

Liv and Damon passed through the wards with Alaric. Liv wondered if her sister's barriers would have let her in on their own or considered her an invader, and found to her unpleasant surprise that she didn't know.

She set up shop in Jo's kitchen. The counter was large enough for the candles, the carefully drawn trifecta, and she even found an iron-cast cauldron in the pantry that was better than the one she brought with her. She nicked her blood into the pot and started the Revocation Spell.

"She could have put any number of layers of cloaking spell over the Ascendant. So I'll keep stripping until we get to it. I'll use colour coding so move fast, vampire."

"Colour… Oh!" Alaric's half-asked question was answered when Liv peeled back the first layer and a flash of blue sparked through the ceiling.

"Vampire," she said, but he was literally ahead of her, speeding up the stairs. He was back the next second with a small bag. He had barely opened it all the way before they could all smell the pot.

"Looks like the good doctor gives herself a little picker-upper now and then." He tossed it, and Alaric snatched it out of the air.

"Put it back."

"This is the good stuff. Might come in useful if I ever decide to go into the business." But he took it from Alaric, and sped away.

The next layer revealed a couple of Grimoires, and an ordinary-looking trunk under the floorboards, that Liv couldn't open with magic and Damon finally tore through, only to reveal a knife rusty with dried blood, and an old baseball bat.

"What the f-?" Damon whispered. Liv had the same question. This was taking "rifling through your big sister's drawers" into a whole new level of freak show she had not signed up for.

"Just put it back," Alaric said.

"Are you keeping track of all this, witchy?"

"Doing my best," Liv muttered, trying not to show how creeped out she was.

To Liv's immense relief, the next layer revealed an 11th Century Gemini wand, a genealogy manuscript, and a small bag on the top of the kitchen cupboard containing four Ascendants.

"Pay dirt!" Damon crowed, throwing them on the kitchen floor.

"Hey, careful with those!" she snapped.

"How do we know which one it is?" Alaric asked, bending down to examine them.

Damon nodded at Liv. "Do your thing, Witchy."

Muttering, she dug out her vial of Chrono powder – she had anticipated this when they told her what this was about – and went to crouch beside the two men. Gingerly picking up one armillary sphere-shaped Ascendant, she carefully tapped the vial against the metal, put the device a safe distance from her ear, and listened to the clockwork.

"What-" Alaric started.

"Shhh!"

He paused. "What," he whispered, and when she just glared, he continued, "are you doing?"

"Why are you whispering?" Damon whispered.

She didn't answer until she heard what she was waiting for. Then she tossed the Ascendant back in the bag.

"Wrong year. I'm doing the magical equivalent of carbon dating. I need to… hear… the time, for lack of a better explanation-"

"What does that-"

"Just shut up and let me work."

None of the Ascendants were the right year. Damon was sceptical, threatening even, until Liv shouted at him, asking what exactly did she have to gain by coming this far only to play games?

"Just find it, Witchy!" He growled.

"You know there's a chance, it's not here?" Alaric said quietly.

"We've found some Ascendants. We'll find this one." Damon's eyes narrowed, and he tapped his pocket where that damning phone with Tyler's picture was. "Or else."

Liv clenched her hands into fists and made herself keep working. A migraine was building at the back of her head, but she ignored it.

In a wooden box, they found the infamous Grimoire called the Medeis Bestia. The preserved bones of some ancient creature that no one could identify. Blood that Liv identified was from faeries.

"Holy Hell," Damon muttered, echoing Liv's sentiments exactly. There was a Mage-Fae Covenant. There were laws…

"Just put it back," Alaric muttered, the refrain getting wearier each time he said it.

They found a receipt to a Cryobank in Milwaukie with a number scribbled at the back, that Damon almost trashed in frustration. A star chart following the Draconis Constellation.

Then there was an old family album that she spent five minutes going through even as Damon snapped at her to hurry. After 1994, Joshua Parker had stripped the home of all their family pictures – photos, portraits, albums – had all vanished. Liv stared at a photo of her parents – young, smiling and happy – and young Jo and Kai – that monster Kai – and what must have been her second and third oldest sisters and felt her bones ache with sorrow.

"You know you can't keep it," Alaric said gently, tugging the album out of her hands. "She'll know."

"This is mine," Liv hissed, not letting go. "It's as much mine as it's hers."

"Ask her about it. She's your sister. She'll gladly share." He wrenched it from her – Liv was tired, the migraine had blown out into a full headache, otherwise she'd have held on harder – and handed it to Damon. Liv watched the vampire run off with the photos with tears in her eyes.

"Is that why you're asking her for the Ascendant?" she snapped at Alaric. "Because she'll gladly share?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

They found wood shards they puzzled over until Alaric figured out was white oak – and he followed Damon to make sure he put it right back.

They found the 1994 Ascendant.

"I thought that was destroyed," Liv said, confused, coughing slightly. Her face was covered with sweat.

"So did I," Alaric said soberly. He gave her a worried look. "Damon, maybe we should-?"

"Is she complaining? Keep going, Witchy."

More Grimoires. More star charts. An ancient scroll written in Samarian, and on closer examination the writing itself was another cloaking layer, and Liv could sense a depth of shielding over the script that made her head spin even more than it already did.

"Just put it back," Alaric muttered. "It's not hiding anything we want to find."

More wands. Some Gemini, some Alaric identified from Ancient Mesoamerican times. More false Ascendants that made Liv almost sob with frustration. More Grimoires. A photo album that she was too tired to even peek at. A microUSB marked 'BB' that Damon slotted into his accursed phone that was top of the range, of course, being that he was a vampire who stole the best toys. He made a face, then slotted it out. "Password locked," he said, not even bothering to lie convincingly.

"Let me see that," Alaric said, trying to swipe it.

Damon held it back. He wagged a finger at the other man. "Let the lady have her secrets."

"Damon-"

It was the early hours of the morning, and Liv had been shivering and sweating through the last six spells. Now she coughed, tasting the iron in her mouth. "Not to ask you bastards to stop wasting my time or anything."

Damon went off to put it back, snickering at Alaric's frustrated glare.

It was right after that they found it – boxed, the delicate gears assembled like an ancient astrolabe.

One thousand, nine hundred and three.

When she finished counting the ticks and gave it to Damon, his hand actually shook.

"There can't be more than one 1903 Ascendant, right?" He asked, his voice uncharacteristically hollow.

"You almost sound disappointed," Alaric said. "You know, Damon, you don't have to-"

His hand tightened around the box, and a sharp smile cut across his face. "Don't even go there."

Liv wiped her face, wasn't surprised to see blood on her hand.

"We really put you through the wringer," Alaric said, and he had the grace to look ashamed.

"Save your fake-ass pity, Prof." She glared at Damon. "I did what you asked. Let Tyler go."

"You still need to actually take me to 1903 and back."

Alaric shouted. "Hey!" just as Liv said with calmness she didn't feel, "Unless you want to kill me, then you're going to need to wait for me to get my strength back. And for a celestial event. I'm not the Gemini Leader. I can't take you there on only my power."

Damon pocketed the Ascendant, his smile turning macabre. "I guess Tyler will continue enjoying Salvatore hospitality until you're ready. So get ready. Fast."

And in a blink, he was gone.

It was all Liv could do not to throw the cauldron against the wall. Instead, she burst into tears, finally given into the fear and exhaustion and the low-key horror that had been building inside her all night as she discovered secrets she wasn't meant to see, nor had she ever wanted to see.

"I'm sorry," Alaric said into the quiet.

"Go away. I'll clean up."

"With more magic? Can you even remember which cloaking spell goes where?"

Liv just moaned.

"You're done here. I'll call you an Uber."

"If Jo comes back, she'll know."

Alaric sighed. "I'll handle Jo. It's the least I can do."

A few moments later, he was bundling her into the cab. It was dawn, the sun peeking a warm pink over the rooftops.

"I'm sorry," Alaric said.

Liv grabbed his hand, held it tight. "Don't let him hurt Tyler anymore." When he hesitated, she held harder. "You owe me that much, you fuck."

He didn't meet her eyes as he slammed the door shut.

Too exhausted to cry, she didn't wake until she got back to campus and met it in flames.

A/N: Happy 2021! I finally updated a story! Thank you all kind readers for waiting patiently, for sending beautiful reviews that kept me up at night with worry that I would disappoint you. I know most of you were hoping for a Long Shadows update, but I promise you that this is a good thing! I'm writing again! I've unclogged the gears, unblocked the clogs, etc etc. Expect more updates for more stories and more frequently!

P.S. Did you see the Long Shadows easter eggs in this chapter?