Ghosts in the Past
DG32173
Sarah: I hope everyone enjoys this attempt at a popular theme in TVD fanfics.
CREDIT
Credit goes to my darling beta for his help on making my stories the best they can be while providing helpful ideas on what I should do next in the plotlines. Thanks Cameron.
DISCLAIMER
If my beta or a reviewer is responsible for the creation of a concept I use in this story, I will put a credit section like the above at the start of the chapter it appears in to denote who the concept originally belonged to. If I own the concept, I will say so at the start of the chapter. Otherwise, it is safe to assume that someone else owns the copyrights.
WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Alters from the show's storyline when Elena finds the bulletin board in Damon's room early season three. Rated M for more than just my sanity. Alternating viewpoints between Elena and modern day Damon with some views from the Bonnie in the modern time as she and the gang try to find a way to reverse the spell.
SUMMARY
After finding Stefan's summertime body count, Elena blackmails Bonnie into showing her what Ripper Stefan is like. When Damon bursts in mid-spell something goes wrong and they are transported to 1920's Chicago. How will they deal with being ghosts in the past? And what will happen when they find past Stefan and Damon? Damon/Elena
Chapter 1
Blackmailed Spell-Casting
I stare at the newspaper clippings in my hands. Given that Damon had been careful to hide the bulletin board these had been attached to on the inside of his closet door, I know with heartbreaking certainty who committed these horrible murders. I take a shaky breath and flee Damon's room, taking the clippings with me. As I make my way through the party on the first floor of the boarding house, I catch Bonnie's eye and nod towards the front door.
She frowns but excuses herself from the guy she was talking to so that she can follow me out onto the veranda. "Elena, what is it?" she asks when we're alone.
"I need you to come with me to my house. I have a spell I'd like you to perform and we can't do it here," I say coolly.
She frowns and protests. "Elena, you know what Caroline will do if she catches us leaving the party. You haven't even blown out the candles on your cake!" she says.
"Bonnie, I don't even know the vast majority of the people here," I point out. "I told Caroline in no uncertain terms that I wanted a small party with just close friends and family. She chose to ignore my wish and invited the entire high school it seems like. I was willing to handle that until I found something in Damon's room that has caused my plans for the evening to change," I tell her. "Now, let's go. I'd really rather not have to knock you out to get you to come with me, but with how this night has turned, I'm more than willing to do it."
Bonnie sees just how serious I am and bows to my demands. "Fine. Let's just get out of here before Caroline finds out we're not still inside," she mutters.
I lead her to my car. I climb in the driver's seat while Bonnie climbs in the front passenger seat. I break at least a dozen laws and run at least two dozen red lights and stop signs getting us back to my house in record time. Bonnie doesn't say a word, just clutching to the dashboard and her door handle so tightly her knuckles turn grey.
I pull into my drive and turn off the car before leaping out and stalking towards my house, not bothering to wait for Bonnie as I let myself in and flick on the light switches I pass on the way up to my room. I flop on my back on my bed and wait for Bonnie to catch up. The newspaper clippings are still clutched tightly in my fist. Bonnie finally catches up to me.
"Do you mind telling me what this is even about?" Bonnie asks as she takes a seat on my bed next to me. In response, I thrust the clippings into her hands without looking at her. Her sharp intake of breath tells me she hadn't known about their existence. "So this is what Klaus –" she starts.
"Stefan," I correct stonily.
She gasps. "Are you sure?" she asks weakly.
"I found those on a bulletin board hanging on the inside of one of the doors to Damon's closet. Damon wouldn't have felt the need to keep this a secret and give excuses as to why the tips I get from Sherriff Forbes are no good if those were about Klaus' murders. He's not tracking Klaus' kills. He's tracking Stefan's. I can feel it in my gut," I reply, sitting up. "I had foolishly thought that I would have a ready answer to the question of who in this world I could trust beyond a shadow of a doubt to be honest with me. I thought I had it summed up into a nice five-letter name: Damon. Turns out I was wrong. Now that I know he's hiding this from me, I need to know what more he's hiding. I need to know what Stefan is really like on human blood."
"And how are you going to find that out?" Bonnie asks.
"That's where you come in," I tell her.
"Elena, whatever you're thinking, you need to stop thinking it. I am not going to send you to Klaus and Stefan because Klaus is going to use that as a damn good excuse to take control of you," she protests.
"I'm not asking you to send me to Klaus and Stefan," I snap impatiently. "I'm asking you to tap into that incredible power that the spirits are loaning you and give me the knowledge of what Stefan's like on human blood."
"Look, I don't know if that's possible. And even if it were, there aren't any grimiores here for me to look the spell up in," she starts.
"Dammit, Bonnie!" I snap. "You're a witch! A powerful witch from a long line of powerful witches! It's time for you to start creating spells of your own! Emily did! From what Damon's told me, Emily wasn't all that much older than we are when she created the spell that sealed the tomb vampires away! And I'm sure that wasn't the first spell she created! C'mon, Bonnie! I need to know what I'm dealing with when I face Stefan again. I need to know what he is like on the human stuff. Please, Bonnie! I know you guys are trying to keep me safe. This knowledge I'm asking you to give me will help me protect myself when we get him back from Klaus. Look at those articles Damon clipped out! Those bodies in the pictures are dismembered, torn limb from limb and then put back together like jigsaw puzzles! And it's Stefan who did all that, I know it in my gut that he did! We need to know what we're up against when we bring him back and Damon's not being very forthcoming with this information."
Bonnie takes a shaky breath. "You're not going to take 'no' for an answer are you?" she asks in resignation.
"Nope," I reply. "Either you help me or I'll just go off and find another witch who will."
"Fine," she sighs. "Just be sure to pick out some nice flowers for my grave because Damon is so going to kill me for this."
"I won't let him kill you," I promise.
"Okay, let's get working before I lose my nerve," she says.
Damon
I sigh as I slip through my bedroom window. It's so much easier than facing the crowd of party-goers taking over the first floor. But as soon as I slip in, I know something's wrong. My room is filled with Elena's scent as it hasn't been since that whole deathbed scenario a few weeks ago. I take stock of my room and my undead heart plummets when I see that the closet door I had hung the bulletin board I was tracking Stefan's movements on is wide open. The bulletin board is on my bed and quite a few of the clippings are missing.
I groan. I so don't need this, not after Stefan killed Andie while forcing me to stay back so I could only watch helplessly as she fell to her death. But I square my shoulders and head downstairs in search of the birthday girl. I quickly find that two notable personages are missing from this party: Elena and a certain little witch. This is not good.
Suddenly, Caroline finds me, raging mad. "Can you believe that Elena would ditch her own birthday party?" she fumes.
"What are you saying, Barbie?" I demand.
"I went outside for a breath of fresh air because someone cut themselves while trying to perform a knife trick and I was just in time to see Elena and Bonnie taking off in Elena's car. Elena was driving like a crazy woman!" she replies.
I let out a vicious blue streak at that. "I think it's safe to say the party's over," I tell her. "Have everyone not in the know gone before I get back because Elena's going to let us all have it. Compel them to leave if you have to."
Caroline pales. "She found the bulletin board?" she whispers. I nod grimly. Elena and Bonnie are the only two who actually don't know that I actually had been tracking Stefan pretty much from the moment I had my strength back from that brush with death. "Not good. I'll clear everyone out. Do you know where to find them?"
"I have a pretty good feeling," I reply. "I need to get moving if I'm going to stop them from whatever magical mayhem Elena cooked up in her fury."
"Be careful," she says as I take off at vamp speed.
I don't care that I had let humans not in the know see me move so fast because I know Caroline will take care of that via compulsion. As I dash through the streets at my top speed, I call myself a thousand kinds of idiot for not coming up with a better place to hide that bulletin board. The boarding house is old! When I had it built in 1914, I had countless hidey holes built into it that only the ones who know about them would know how to find. And plenty of them are big enough to hide that bulletin board! But no! I just had to have it easily accessible.
I leap through Elena's bedroom window in time to see Elena and Bonnie holding hands with their eyes closed as the witch chants in Wiccan. I grab Elena's shoulder in an attempt to get her out of this before it's too late but that's the precise second Bonnie shouts what is obviously the final word of the spell.
I feel like I'm being wrenched about and pulled in a thousand different directions. A ripping sensation rends throughout my insides. I think I hear Elena scream in pain, but I'm can't be sure because my ears are filled with a roaring sound. The god-awful sensation lasts what feels like an eternity before it disappears as suddenly as it came.
I open my eyes, only just now realizing I had closed them. What I see has the most potent blue streak I ever laid voice to fall from my lips. "Okay, where are we?" Elena whispers.
I really don't want to tell her that whatever spell the witch had cast has sent us to Chicago at the worst possible era for us to be here. But I have no choice, not with this all-too-familiar scene before us of horses drawing carriages through cobblestone streets I had walked long ago while keeping an eye on my brother. "Welcome to Chicago, 1920s edition," I say coolly. "I'm guessing you wanted to know just what Stefan is like on human blood because this is the best possible example of it you'll find in history. 'Best' being relative to how much you wanted to see him fallen over the cliff of no return."
"And what are you doing here?" she snaps.
"I was coming to try to stop whatever foolishness you had cooked up in your fury," I sneer. "But I was just a little too late. I got caught up in the spell when I grabbed you to pull you away from the witch. And you better be damned grateful I was because you are not going to like what you're going to see and I'm the only one who can give you the full-on tour of what you wanted to know."
"Got an answer for everything, don't you?" she mocks. I nod. "Then tell me why the hell no one is stopping to stare at us when we are dressed in clothes that so obviously don't belong in this era, because I'd love to know."
I open my mouth to make a wisecrack when we get the distinctly disturbing scenario of having a pair of Clydesdales and the carriage they're drawing trot right through us. "Because we're ghosts in this era," I say instead. "Apparently we're not allowed to interfere with what happened here."
She opens her mouth to respond when we get another unpleasant surprise. "Katherine?" my own voice breathes from behind me.
"Apparently we're not ghosts to everyone," Elena says softly, her eyes widened in shock as she looks over my shoulder.
I groan and turn around to study my 1920s self. "What the hell is going on here?" he demands when he sees my face.
"That will take a lot of explaining," I tell my past self as I get the distinctly unsettling sensation of having my own memories of the era be rewritten starting now. I still remember what had happened originally but these new memories are now taking place side-by-side with those memories. "And in a place where you won't look like an idiot talking to himself. Care to take us to the lovely little foreclosure you took over, Damon?"
I'll admit, it's a little creepy talking to your past self and having the memory of talking to a guy who looks just like you being written in your mind at the same time. And I have a funny feeling the creepiness is just going to continue to mount. Bonnie had better get us back to our time and soon.
Bonnie, modern day
Okay, I'll admit it, I am thoroughly panicking now. I couldn't have sent them to Klaus and Stefan, right? I mean, I was making up the spell as I went but, seriously, I was concentrating on showing Elena just what Stefan is like on the human blood and not letting her go to wherever Stefan and Klaus are now, okay? My fingers are shaking as I text the mayday alert everyone had agreed on when something goes so totally awful that it's going to take the whole team to fix it, if it's fixable.
But, one second, Elena's here, holding my hands as I make up the spell as she requested. I felt a rush of wind just as I completed the spell. I opened my eyes just in time to see both Damon and Elena fade away like ghosts, both looking to be in horrible pain as they faded.
In addition to the mayday alert I manage to add Elena's house to the text so they know where to meet up. This is going to be terrible to explain to everyone! I should have just cast a sleeping spell on her or something and contacted Damon to take care of her! He's always good at coming up with a way to take care of Elena when she gets these crazy notions in her head! He's the one person in this world she'd forgive for anything! Ugh, what the hell was I thinking, going along with this?
The first to arrive is Caroline, coming through Elena's window. Hot on her heels comes Tyler, also through Elena's window. I bury my face in my hands as they start interrogating me on what the hell the mayday alert was about. In spite of the fact that I'm having a complete emotional breakdown, I manage to make it clear that I'm going to wait for everyone to show up before going into details. What the hell are we going to do?