No Distance Too Far
DG32173

Sarah: Here's chapter 2. The only reason I'm posting this is because everyone wants more of this story. I'm actually amazed at that because I had thought killing Damon in the first chapter would be a total turnoff for Delena fans. Guess the idea of Elena being willing to pay any price, even resorting to necromancy, to bring him back hooked your attention. Thanks everyone for giving me the chance to explore this idea further. Just so everyone knows, I'm listening to a lot of Evanescence at the beginning of this fanfic, particularly their song Even In Death. It really sets the mood for this first part of the fanfic. Also, in this chapter we finally find out the name of the witch who had enchanted Damon's Mother's jewelry that appeared in several of my other stories. Anyways, review replies and then the story. The chapter starts with Elena.

REVIEW REPLIES

heyitskarma: well, I was just about to call it a night shortly after posting the first chapter, decided to check and see if there happened to be any reviews, and I see you as the first reviewer. Glad you liked it and want to know more. Here's the next chapter.

Imarifirst: (laughs) guess you know which story this idea came from. Glad you approve. Yes, necromancy is seriously bad juju, especially the way Elena is going to do it. You'll see the start of the price that will be paid to bring Damon back this chapter. Here's the next chapter. Enjoy.

Chapter 2
Everything Has a Price

I sit with Katherine in silence as she explains to the witch she had brought me to what my situation is. Situation? Such a benign word for the fact that Damon's dead and I'm willing to resort even to necromancy to bring him back to me, no matter the cost. I don't know if the dream I had earlier that involved him was a creation of my subconscious to try to bring him back to me somehow or if he had actually contacted me from beyond the grave to give me a piece of his mind the only way he could.

I don't really care either way. Even if his ghost had invaded my dreams, that is no substitute for having him with me in the waking world. I have always been willing to pay any price to rescue Damon, going all the way back to Georgia when Lexi's boyfriend had tried to barbecue him. I couldn't save him from dying from Tyler's bite, but I will bring him back or I will kill myself to join him on the Other Side. Those are the only options I can live with.

I don't really pay attention to anything about the witch other than the knowledge that Katherine thinks she can help him. The witch meets my eyes and I feel a chill run down my spine at the fact that there is no spark, no life behind the dark eyes looking into mine. But I don't let that stop me. "Everything has a price in magic," she rasps at me. "The greater and darker the magic, the steeper the price. Bringing the dead back to the life they had before … that has the steepest price of all. Are you willing to pay any price to bring your love back to this world, young doppelganger? Is there no price you can think of that you would not be willing to pay to have him back?"

I feel another chill run down my spine. Damon had said something similar in my dream as I slept earlier. I could not have figured this out on my own, even subconsciously. Damon's ghost had to have contacted me in my dream. Even now, he could be in this room with us, unable to let me know his opinion on this though he had already voiced it in the dream.

I take a deep breath and give the witch's questions the careful consideration they deserve. Is there a price I won't pay to bring Damon back? It takes a moment before I realize there is only one price I won't pay to be with him again. "The only price I refuse to pay to bring him back is my own life. He would simply kill himself again if that was the price I paid," I admit.

The witch lets out an eerie cackle and I feel a sudden chill around my wrist, as if something ice cold had wrapped around it. The strange thing is that the chill is in the exact shape of Damon's hand, as if his ghost had grabbed my wrist. Is he trying to tell me to get up and leave? Or is he offering support the only way he can? I won't know, I can't know, until I sleep again and he chooses to invade my dreams once more.

"Oh, the price of bringing a supernatural back from death is not so high as another life sacrificed," the witch rasps when she's done expressing her amusement. "For their spirits are merely on the Other Side of the veil some ancient witch had placed for dead supernaturals to go eons ago and not in heaven or hell. If he had been human, the price would have been another life sacrificed. But he was a vampire. The price is not as steep as that."

"What is the price?" I ask softly, getting the distinct sense that Damon does not like this. But I'm willing to do anything to have him back.

"A binding of two souls, his and yours, is all the magic asks. You will become half-vampire, half-human. He will come back as such. Be warned, little doppelganger, binding two souls in such a way has many consequences if you choose to follow through. The vampire blood running through both your veins will make you have the weaknesses and strengths of a vampire, including near immortality. But the human blood will also affect you both in ways unknown to me as it has never been done before. And binding two souls together like this will also link your life-forces. Should one life-force of the binding be snuffed out somehow, then the other will die soon after as one cannot live long with what will essentially become half of even two separate souls. What else shall happen because of this binding, I cannot say as none have thought the price worth the service. Are you willing to pay the price? Are you willing to be bound irrevocably to him for all eternity?"

I look down in thought. "Will the offer still be on the table tomorrow?" I ask finally. "I need time to think on this, sleep on this decision." I need Damon's input and he can only come to me in dreams now. It's not just my life that will be affected by this choice, but his as well.

"Take all the time you need, little doppelganger. Old Marie isn't going anywhere," the witch cackles.

"Then I'll be back tomorrow with my decision. This will affect both Damon and I and I need to figure out where he would stand on such an option before I agree or disagree to the terms," I say softly, hoping he's in the room and understands that I want him to contact me in my dreams tonight so we can discuss this. If it were just affecting me, I'd agree, no problem. But I won't do something like this to Damon without talking to him first. Depending on what he has to say will determine what I do next.

That night

Katherine had paid for a hotel room for me near the swamp where the witch lives and told me she'd be back in the morning around sunrise before taking off to do who knows what around the city. Since I brought nothing with me except Damon's ring, I strip off my outer clothes and let them air out on the back of the chair in the room before climbing into one of the beds and forcing my body to relax one muscle group at a time, a trick I had learned as a child would help me get to sleep quickly.

Damon

I watch as Elena forces her body to relax into sleep. She made it perfectly clear at that witch's hut that she wants to speak to me tonight in her dreams. I'm sorely tempted to refuse her, but there's no telling what she'd decide to do if I don't contact her and we need to have a serious talk about the repercussions the witch said would happen if we did this.

As soon as Elena completely relaxes into sleep, I invade her dreams again to find us standing on the tiny swamp island the witch had lived on, the full moon in the dream sky overhead barely making it through the dense fog surrounding us.

"Elena, you should know something before we have this discussion," I tell her.

She turns to me, relief that I had elected to show up after all written clearly on her face. "Damon. I wasn't sure you'd come," she murmurs.

"Oh, I wasn't about to let you make this decision on your own, young lady," I retort. "But, first, you should know that by all rights, that particular witch you visited today should be just as dead as I am. That was Marie Catherine Laveau. She's even older than I am and no mortal witch has ever lived that long in that kind of shape without making a deal with a demon of some sort or other."

"The Marie Laveau?" Elena gasps. "The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans? Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and all that? The one who died at nearly eighty years old back at the end of the nineteenth century?"

"The one and the same," I confirm. "Did you get a look at her eyes, Elena?"

She shudders. "They were completely lifeless, like there was no soul in her body," she replies.

"No soul that belongs to anything in this world, at least," I agree. "She's demon-possessed. If we go through with this, we will be making a deal with an actual devil. Not the kind of thing to enter into lightly."

"I need you back with me, Damon. I'm willing to make a deal with a devil if you are," she replies. "If you don't want to do it and I find this is the only way, I'll kill myself to come to you."

I sigh. "Well, I damn sure don't want you dying," I say, raking a hand through my hair. "But how can we know for sure the demon was telling us everything about this deal we'll be making with it? Demons are always leaving things out of their bargains to make them sound far better than they actually are. And what it did say is hard enough to swallow. We'll end up hybrids, similar to Klaus, if we do this. Sure, we may have all the perks of vampirism, but what of the human blood? It said nothing about what that would do to us and I'm willing to bet it knows more than it let on about the full scope of the deal we'd be making."

"Are you willing to risk it, though? Are you willing to tie our souls, our very life-forces, together to come back to me?" she asks, her eyes filled with cautious hope.

I'd do anything for her, but this? Why does it have to be a deal with an actual demon? Demons never make fair deals. There's always a nasty clause in the fine print of any deal they make with the living. What is the clause in this deal? But as the hope begins to fade from her eyes at my prolonged silence, I realize I'd even risk this to make her happy again and keep her alive. "I guess I'm willing to be bound to you for eternity if you are willing to be bound to me, kitten," I say finally.

Tears of joy fill her eyes. "Thank you, Damon," she whispers.

"We'll just have to figure out what nastiness is in the fine print of this deal with a devil when it comes up and deal with it then," I sigh. "Because demon's always put a nasty clause in the fine print of every deal they make."

"We've gotten through nastiness before. We'll continue to do so, so long as we have each other," she replies.

Before I can reply, I sense Katherine approaching Elena to wake her up. "Katherine's about to wake you up, kitten. Guess I'll see you after the ritual," I tell her before releasing her dreams from my mental hands and opening my eyes in the waking world.

Katherine starts shaking Elena awake as soon as I open my eyes. Elena wakes up quickly. "Have you made your decision?" my sire asks her.

Elena nods, her face set in a mask of determination. "I have," she replies softly.

Katherine studies Elena for a moment before muttering too softly for Elena to hear, "Deals with demons."

So, Katherine knew just what she would be doing by giving Elena this option. I sigh. It's too late now. We had made our decision and I can't warn Elena that Katherine knew Marie was possessed by a demon without Elena going to sleep again. She's not about to do that, not until after whatever ritual the demon will perform is complete and I'm back with her.

It isn't long before we're all back in that hut on the swamp island where the demon-possessed witch lives. I still get a chill at seeing the living body of a witch who's supposed to have died more than a century ago. I had met her only once, on my very first visit to New Orleans just ten short years after my transition. She now looks like a much younger version of that same witch who had enchanted my mother's jewelry

If it weren't for the eyes signaling demon possession, I'd swear this was a look-alike descendant of Marie's. But those eyes, not to mention certain scars on her hands and face, tell me this is the Marie Catherine Laveau and she made an inescapable deal with a demon after I had met her. Whatever she had hoped to gain from her deal, she had obviously lost a whole lot more in the process. I just hope Elena and I aren't about to make a similar mistake.

"So, little doppelganger, have you come to a decision?" Marie asks Elena.

"We … I mean, I have," she says. "I'm willing to bind my soul and life-force to Damon's and become half-vampire, half-human just to have him back."

Katherine's gaze flickers sharply to Elena at her slip, a considering look entering her gazes as she obviously ponders on that particular word slipping out of Elena's mouth before she had caught herself. Could she be figuring out that I can still contact Elena in her dreams, in spite of being dead?

Katherine

Elena had been about to say "We have" rather than "I have" in responding to the demon's question. Could Damon somehow be able to communicate with her from beyond the grave? Could she have spent last night somehow coming to the decision to make a deal with a devil with his actual permission?

That bears some consideration later. Whatever else is in this deal with a devil that she is making worries me. Sure, I may have at one time had my life-force magically tied to hers temporarily to keep the Salvatore brothers from killing me. But that was my way of protecting my last descendant when I couldn't be around to protect her. Sure, I pretty much offered her up on a silver platter to Klaus for the sacrifice, but Emily had told me before her death that the descendant of mine I would lose Damon to would one day be successfully sacrificed by him only to come back because Damon would not give her up to death without a fight. That was why I had set the stage for that act. I hadn't expected Damon's death to be the result or I would have fought with them to stop Klaus.

When I first laid eyes on the Salvatore brothers, Damon had won my heart first. But Emily had warned me that I would one day lose him to a descendant of mine, another doppelganger, who would be his soul mate. So I never allowed myself to fully fall for him as I did with Stefan. I never allowed myself a chance at that heartache. But his death had still hit me hard, though not nearly as hard as it hit Elena.

That and the life-debt I owe Damon for supplying me with vervain while I was trapped with Klaus are the only reasons I even considered bringing Elena to make a deal with a demon. Demons are tricky bastards and always add a nasty clause in the fine print of whatever deal they make with those living on the mortal plane. I'm sure this demon's deal with Elena has the same kind of nastiness in the fine print, especially when the demon cackles gleefully at Elena's words. But if Elena and possibly even Damon are willing to make a deal with a devil, it's not my place to stop them.

Without saying anything, the demon motions for us to follow it into a curtained off room towards the back of the hut. There is nothing in this room but a bunch of candles scattered around, already burning and lighting the place in flickering light, and a witch's pentagram marked onto the floor in something the color of dried blood. Best not to think about what it might have come from. "You wait just inside the door, elder doppelganger," it says. "Little doppelganger, come stand in the middle of the pentagram."

I didn't want to get anywhere near that pentagram, anyways. I lean against the wall next to the heavy curtain blocking all light from outside the room and prepare to watch the spectacle unfold.

Elena

I take a shaky breath. Something tells me that I do not want to know what, exactly, that pentagram was drawn with. Trying very hard not to think about it, I carefully make my way to the exact center of the diagram and wait for the witch to tell me what to do next.

"Hold out your hand," she says, pulling a small switchblade knife from one of her pockets. I gulp but obey. I hiss as she cuts my wrist just enough to allow blood to slowly well up from the gash. She turns my wrist over and allows exactly thirteen drops of blood to hit the ground within the pentagram. I gasp as, upon the thirteenth drop hitting the floor, the pentagram glows a bright red the color of fresh blood, literally absorbing my blood into it.

The witch quickly starts chanting in a language that sounds nothing like the Wiccan I have heard Bonnie and Grams speak when they are casting spells. Whatever this language is, it has a lot of hissing and growling of the syllables. Suddenly, I cry out in pain as I feel my soul being torn in half. One half is taken from me while half of what I realize must be Damon's soul replaces it. I would collapse from the pain and the shock of it if the witch's firm grasp on my arm weren't keeping me partially upright. I feel my very life-force being cut in two and half being taken from me.

I barely hear the sound of a body hitting the floor next to me as I feel my body changing from mere human to half-human, half-vampire. I feel my face vamp out for the very first time in my life as the witch's strange chanting reaches a climax. With a final, snarled word, the witch releases me and I collapse to the floor. I barely manage to pry my eyes open, only just realizing I had closed them in my agony. I feel my heart soar at seeing Damon next to me, his beautiful eyes glazed slightly with the fading pain from the ritual.

"Well, fuck, that hurt!" he complains weakly, causing me to let out a strained chuckle. That was quite likely the understatement of the entire millennium.

Sarah: And that's it for Chapter 2. Damon's back, but at what price? You know what they say about making deals with demons. Review and tell me what you think.