Jolting awake from my dream, a single name flew from my lips all at once as I practically felt the life being breathed back into the body of the man I had seen in my dreams. "Elijah!" Flying upright, I sucked in a deep breath, coated in a sheen of sweat as Rebekah stirred beside me, having been awoken by my outburst with a groan.
"Lia? What is it? Did you have a vision?" Blinking and rubbing my head to dispel my confusion, I sighed heavily and sank back into my pillows after recovering. "What about my brother?"
"He's awake. Or at least, he's going to be very soon." I told her as she switched on a light so that we could see each other, curled up on my bed from where we'd fallen asleep watching a movie. "And that's not all. The vision where I see you all in the grove? I can see your two other brothers as well now, Kol and Finn, which means they're going to wake up soon as well, and there's something else. There's a woman with long caramel blonde coloured hair, she's new. I saw her standing on her own within a witch's circle." I revealed before looking deeply at Rebekah. "I think it's your mom."
"My mother?" Breathing lightly, Rebekah began to push herself upright. "What did you see about my mother?"
"Nothing much, I just saw her. Usually that means I'm going to meet that person soon. I don't want to get your hopes up or anything, but I could…I don't know, feel her. Are you sure Klaus killed her? It was so real I can't even begin to explain it." Shaking her head, Rebekah slumped back down with a heavy sadness hanging over her.
"I hardly know what to believe anymore." Understanding her predicament, I brushed her hair aside before snuggling back down as well.
"You know, you can't hide forever. Maybe now's the perfect time to go visit Klaus. If Elijah wakes up, as well as the rest of your brothers, then you can all have that family meeting you guys all so desperately need." I suggested and Bekah hummed thoughtfully in return.
"Perhaps. Though I have been enjoying the simple life of a human here. Your parents are so good to me, perhaps I should compel them to adopt me as their own as they did with you." Smiling at her, I turned onto my back so I could look up at my ceiling which had been painted with a cosmic galaxy, stars scattered everywhere so that it practically came alive.
"Doubt you'd even have to compel them. They love you. Especially my mom, I'm pretty sure she's your number one fan. If I'm not careful, she might actually start to like you more than me." Joking around lightly, Rebekah managed a smile at me before we just lay there, heads touching and staring upwards. "If you need more time, you can carry on living here. It's not a problem."
"No, I need to face my brother. You're right about that. Now's as good a time as any I suppose, and if Elijah is returning, then I won't have to face him alone." After discussing it a little longer, we both went back to sleep where I promised to let Rebekah know if I became aware of any fresh developments, though lately I seemed to be having a lot of dreams. The most troubling was the one that I'd warned Damon about concerning Alaric going killer psycho during blackouts because of his Gilbert ring bringing him back from the dead too many times.
Since the medical examiner had been found dead, I realised that Damon hadn't taken my warning seriously, so I had better step up and clean up the mess before it actually happens and save everyone a headache, including me. It was late when I went to the hospital, having a vague sense of when Alaric's next killing frenzy was going to occur, and sure enough when I went looking for Caroline's dad, Bill Forbes, I followed the strong pulsating energy of dark magic to find Alaric dragging him into a storage room. Jesus, it's like babysitting a bunch of kids and keeping them from messing up the house.
With a flick of my hand, I knocked out Caroline's dad despite not being entirely thrilled at saving him, since he had been the one to torture Caroline before but I was under the impression that he was trying to make up for that by helping Tyler break his sire bond. Anyway, Bill went out like a light, leaving me with the crazy version of Alaric. "Hey Mr Saltzman. Rough night?" I asked, seeing that passive, dead look in his eye before he gave me a murderous smirk, knife in hand having intended to bury it into Bill's chest. Not exactly a neighbourly thing to do, Ric.
"You are not a target." He said to me, but I figured that I probably was now since I'd interrupted him. Rolling my eyes, I used magic to swarm Alaric and knock him out too before cloaking the three of us so that we disappeared from sight. With two unconscious fully grown men on my hands, I had to levitate them both out of there. I dropped Bill down on a hospital bed where he'd been recovering from Tyler's attack, uncloaked him, then went on my merry way.
"You sure don't have a great deal of luck when it comes to being possessed, Ric." I mused cheerfully as I drove out of the hospital in order to take him back to his apartment, having found the address on some ID. "But don't worry, I'll have that split personality out of you in no time. You should probably be glad you're my favourite teacher otherwise I probably wouldn't be doing this for you, you know." Joking lightly just to pass the time, I kept on glancing back to make sure Alaric would stay unconscious for the entirety of the journey before we arrived. I was seriously grateful for the levitation spell, otherwise I would have had no chance lugging Alaric up all those stairs and opening up his apartment with all his dead weight.
Dropping him on a couch, I set up an array on the floor by burning it into the wood, creating an interwoven Celtic knot and finding some candles to arrange around us, lighting them with a snap of my fingers. "Okay Ric, let's do this." Having set up everything, I had Alaric kneel down in the centre of the circle in order to begin the process of cleansing his body from death and banish whatever freaky voodoo had taken over part of his mind and sent him on a murderous rampage against the founding families. Considering a lot of my parent's friends were founders, I figured it would be real inconvenient if a whole bunch of them just started dying, dropping out like flies.
First I took off the Gilbert ring, setting it aside to remake the enchantment that gave it the power to save the wearer from a supernatural death, then started with the ceremony. "Wake." Pressing my hands against the sides of Alaric's face as I stood behind him, he opened his eyes with a rush, sucking in a deep breath before trying to move, jerking his head in order to try and get a look at me but he was pinned down as the candles flickered around us.
"What is this? Who are you? What are you going to do with me?" So I was still dealing with psycho Alaric. That's not a bad thing I guess, it makes this entire thing a whole lot easier.
"I'm going to block you from resurfacing and hopefully erase you altogether, so hush up and let me work. This is a long and complicated ritual." Breathing steadily, the candle flames bloomed and withered with every breath, following the swell and sink of my magic as I focused on Alaric's mind. He croaked, starting to feel the pull of my power as I forced the shadow side to be removed from my teacher's head, cleansing him of what the ring had put him through. Unfortunately, that meant I had to erase every death he'd suffered with the ring, and to do that, I had to take it upon myself instead.
The first death was the feeling of being stabbed in the lung, though without the physical wound all I could feel was the pain. In that moment, I almost called the entire thing off it hurt so bad. I could literally feel like my lung was filling with blood, choking me as my ribs ached from breaking under whatever it was that had stabbed Alaric before. Nasty. Already tears were streaming, groaning and whimpering as I continued to grip onto Alaric's head and pushed forwards, knowing that I had started this and I had to finish it. Although I'm afraid of pain, I sure as hell ain't no quitter.
Apparently, my history teacher had also had his neck broken a couple of times, which really hurt but the worst one was the last one, where it felt like a force of something fast and big slammed against me all at once to shatter most of my bones and cause internal damage as well, feeling every ounce of pain whilst being physically unhurt. It took well over an hour, murmuring under my breath in some old, forgotten language before I finally sealed away that part of Alaric, making him himself again then let him go. He dropped to the ground and the candles blew out from a gust of wind as I laboured for air, feeling physically drained and when something wet and warm trailed down to my lip, I found that I was bleeding from my nose.
Guess fighting against something like that had really taken it's toll, and I couldn't help but feel like something more than just the alter ego had been fighting me all along the way. It was over now, so I didn't' really give it any further thought. Instead I picked up the ring and cupped it in my hands, holding it within my palms to reset the enchantment that allowed him to come back to life and improved it so that this wouldn't happen again. The last thing this town needed was another crazed serial killer on the loose, considering we had plenty of those already. Once the spell was complete, I put the ring back on his finger then levitated him over to his bed, putting him down there to rest whilst every bone and muscle in my body ached, especially where I'd gone through the deaths Alaric had experienced. How many times could one guy be so unlucky as to die? Repeatedly? Ric couldn't have such crappy luck, that's just too sad.
Erasing all evidence that I had ever stepped foot in this apartment, I then left a few clues for other people to find so that they would know what was going on with Alaric. I'd put together a case file, as well as writing down some notes explaining what was going on with the ring, as well as leaving Samantha Gilbert's journal out in the open for someone to find and read after I'd stolen it from that doctor's home, having known where to find it thanks to a vision. I have to admit, being able to glimpse the future was exceptionally useful.
With everything over and done with, I paid one final visit to the Gilbert household, cloaked with magic so that no one knew I was there. Both Elena and Jeremy were asleep and I checked in on them both. Despite me not liking Elena very much, I had to admit that I did feel a margin of empathy and sympathy for her, considering just how many people she'd lost. Having lost my own family, I knew what it felt like, the overwhelming grief and the struggle to even think about carrying on your life without them. I knew that she'd felt like she'd lost Stefan too, and I felt bad for giving her crap about it but I hadn't really known then how deeply she was capable of feeling and loving someone.
After losing her aunt, and then Stefan too…I was a real jerk to her. Still, that doesn't mean that I like her anymore, but I guess I could try to be more tolerant towards her. Deciding to be nice, I used my magic to give Elena a dream, one where all her loved ones were with her and they could be together, reassuring her that they had found peace. Watching her shift and sigh with a flicker of a smile, I then turned away and sought out Jeremy Gilbert. I took his ring whilst he slept, fixing the spell to make sure what was happening to Ric wouldn't happen to him.
Once all was done I replaced the ring, ruffled his hair lightly then left, feeling a smug sense of prideful satisfaction that I'd done my hero work for the day before returning home to tell Rebekah all about it, complaining about how much that ritual had hurt and needing a bath to wash it all off.