Disclaimer: See prologue
Thought about leaving it until next week, but i didn't :)
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more
And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more
... ... ...
The very thing that Stefan feared, had happened and he wanted to call it off. If it had been anyone else, Damon would have just said it was collateral damage but since it was Kenzie, a part of him just wanted to find Katherine right then and rip her heart out, consequences be damned. If Katherine got to him first then oh well, he'd go out fighting for Kenzie, it was the least he could do since he couldn't save her.
It surprised him just how awful he felt about that. Katherine had been lying, there was no way he was in love with her, right? She was his friend, his only real friend here, his friend that he had quite enjoyed fooling around with. She didn't care about all that crap about strong morals that everyone seemed to be caught up on and now that Kenzie was dead, who would be there for him?
He could sort out the feelings he didn't quite understand later, he knew he had to follow through with the plan to get rid of the bitch that has been a thorn in his side since the day he died. Kenzie was currently in his car, a blanket over her so nobody would think twice if they looked in his car. Him, nor Stefan had told Bonnie, Caroline or Jeremy about her just yet, knowing one or all of them would freak and try to call the whole thing off.
He got the gun ready and waited for Katherine to enter the room. When she did, he stepped out of the closet and shot her in the back, a gleeful smile on his face. She gasped as Stefan stepped forward and went to stab her but she turned at the last second, getting staked in the arm instead. He raised the stake again but Katherine pushed him away as Damon ran forward and pulled the stake out of her back, ready to stake her in the heart this time. She stopped his arm, throwing him against the wall as Stefan stood, throwing stakes at her. She dodged the first one but caught the second, throwing it back at him as Damon stood behind her with the stake raised. Katherine spun around at the last second, grabbing him around the neck and tossing him again. He rolled to his feet and tried to stake her again but she grabbed his wrist, turning the stake around on him and pushing it closer to his heart. Stefan jumped on her from behind, taking her down to the ground and Damon rushed her, the stake raised.
"Stop." Jeremy yelled.
Damon hesitated, glancing back at him.
"You're hurting Elena! Everything you're doing to her is hurting Elena!"
A part of Damon wanted to say screw it and stake the bitch anyways but by then Stefan had let her go and she was standing up with a huge smirk on her face.
"You think you two are the only ones with a witch on your side? Wrong and something tells me that my witch is better than your witch." She snatched the stake out of Damon's hands.
"Jeremy, go check on Elena. Make sure she's okay. Go." Stefan commanded of the youngest Gilbert.
"Let's all make sure poor Elena is okay." Katherine sarcastically griped, taking the stake and dragging it across the palm of her hand "Just a little bit more pressure."
Stefan smacked the stake away from her with a glare but Katherine moved quickly to pick it up and hold it, ready to stab herself.
"This is really going to hurt."
"Wait." Stefan cried.
She relaxed, moving to sit on the couch. "Okay, how about that moonstone?" Nobody moved and she let out a sigh. "The three of us together just like old times. The brother who loved me too much and the one that didn't love me enough."
Damon let out his own sigh, this was going to be a long night.
… … …
It wasn't until Katherine was trapped in the tomb, her cries and banging against the door growing more distant, that he realized he would have the crappy task of getting rid of Kenzie. He sighed and grabbed a shovel out of his trunk, propping it against the car as he opened the door and leaned in to pick Kenzie up. He cradled her in his arms, taking off her mask and pushing her hair back as his fingers brushed against her cheek.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you Redbird." He leaned down, kissing her forehead then placing one last kiss on her lips. He pulled away and was about to put her down when a very faint thumping reached his ears. He stopped and listened, wondering if it was Katherine still screaming to get out but that wasn't it. He looked around and still not seeing the source of the noise, looked down at Kenzie. He leaned down an ear to her chest when all of a sudden she jolted awake with a gasp.
Damon was absolutely floored as he stumbled back against his car, almost dropping her as he looked down.
"What the hell was that?" She whispered her eyes wide with actual fear as she wildly looked around.
Damon placed her in the front seat of his car and knelt in front of her as he grabbed the hand with the ring on it. "Well I'll be damned, you have one too."
"Have one what? Seriously what the fuck? I can feel my legs and we're not at the party. That Bitch."
"How do you feel?"
"Like I should be dead, I swear that Bitch killed me"
He laughed, and grabbed her face, pulling her in for a kiss. "You were and you should be. You scared the shit out of me."
"I was really dead? She killed me? How am I here?"
"Probably this ring. I almost buried you."
"In this dress?" she screeched. "You would have had to buy me a new dress, do you have any idea how much this costs?"
"I'll buy you all the dresses you want." He declared.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously before realization struck her. "Oh. So I am dead now, this is the afterlife, the really weird, freaky, opposite afterlife where everything is different than the actual life, which is why you're being so nice to me."
"You're alive, Kenzie. Text your dad, tell him you're staying at Caroline's, I'll fill you in."
She didn't question him, instead pulling her phone out from in between her boobs.
"I would've done that a long time ago if I knew you were hiding it there."
Kenzie quickly tapped out a message to her dad before looking back at him. "No because that is one step away from necrophilia you weirdo, which is rich coming from me because aren't you kind of dead or something, so that would mean-" She stopped, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Gross."
She leaned forward, resting her head in her hands as she tried to gather her bearings. She was so confused and nothing made sense anymore. She remembered the pain from Katherine severing her spine and paralyzing her, she remembered hearing the crack before everything went dark and she had apparently died but she had no recollection if she had gone into some light or something. She just… ceased to exist. She remembered hearing something, someone, then she was waking up here, as good as new.
Damon motioned for her to fully get in the car and she did as he closed the door, throwing the shovel into the trunk before getting into the car. When he had started and was back on the road, he glanced over at her, noticing she still looked slightly panicked.
"So, you want to hear what happened?"
She shrugged, her thoughts still racing.
"Katherine killed you and disappeared. I wanted to go rip her heart out but we stuck with the plan. Caroline lured her into a room where she was trapped by a spell, we staked her, missed her heart, there was some fighting where she totally kicked our asses, although I would never admit that to anyone else and we finally got her down, I was this close to staking her when the littlest Gilbert came running in saying that whatever we did to Katherine was happening to Elena. She had her own witch and linked the two. I almost staked her anyways for killing you though."
She sent him a questioning look as the last sentence clued in. "You would've killed Elena though."
"I know." He simply replied, not elaborating more. "Anyway, her witch double crossed her, did something to her, we got her into the tomb and trapped her in there, so she's stuck and not happy."
"Why not stake her now?" She wanted to know.
"Because we need information."
He pulled up to his house and got out, using his speed to appear at her door and open it up.
"How am I alive again?" she weakly asked as they reached his front door.
He shrugged and opened it, motioning for her to stay out there and be quiet as he stepped inside and called for his brother who appeared in the entrance way with Caroline beside him.
"Did you… deal with Kenzie?" Stefan asked, a pained look on his face.
"How could you not tell me she was dead?" Caroline shrieked, tears on her face. "I actually liked her, she didn't care that I was a Vampire, she was my friend and a damn good cheerleader."
"What are you doing here?" Damon asked in a bored voice.
"Explaining what happened with Tyler."
"Well, me first." Damon announced. "Katherine is locked away in the tomb, I went to go bury Kenzie who would apparently have killed me if I had done so with that dress when lo and behold..."
He opened the door with a flourish to see Kenzie standing on the front porch, her hair in a disarray as she looked beyond freaked out.
"Kenzie." Caroline cried, rushing her with Vampire speed and throwing her arms around her. "they said you were dead, that Katherine killed you." She stepped back, holding the smaller girl at arms length. "Oh my god, you're a vampire."
Kenzie shot a bewildered look at Damon, who answered for her.
"Nope, still human, apparently that ring she has, has a lot more secrets then we knew."
"Like the Gilbert Rings?" Stefan asked before smiling warmly at Kenzie. "I'm glad you're okay though."
"I'm not. I was dead, I don't understand."
Damon nodded in understanding. "Ah, I see, the girl who doesn't fear death finally gets what she wants, only to have it taken away."
"No." the redhead snapped. "I was dead, I know she killed me and I just defied the laws of like, life or something because here I am, walking around, alive, with full use of my legs, which I know she paralyzed. Is it a wonder I'm so confused."
The three Vampires exchanged a look before Caroline grabbed her hand, pulling her into the living room. "We'll try to explain, then I'll tell you and Damon about Tyler."
"Oh hell, Tyler, I was kind of his date. How long was I dead for?"
"Just a few hours." Stefan assured her.
"Oh what a relief." She sarcastically snapped. "Does anyone know I'm dead? Like are there going to be issues when I show up very much alive?"
"Elena, Bonnie, Jeremy and us." Caroline told her. "We were all so upset."
"I'm sure Bonnie was devastated." She muttered. "I need to sit down." She bypassed everyone and began walking down the hall.
"Where are you going?" Caroline called.
"To sit down." She responded, going to Damon's room.
She heard Stefan tell Caroline to give her some time to adjust as she entered his room, lifting the dress over her head and throwing it down as she kicked off her shoes and pulled out one of his shirts to sleep in. She crawled into his bed and curled up into a little ball on her side, staring at the wall. She could have been there for minutes or even hours when Damon entered the room. She heard him move around before he lied down beside her.
"Redbird, you okay?"
"No." she cried. "I'm not, I'm really, really not. Why am I not dead?"
"Because your ring protects you from all Supernatural deaths." He explained.
She turned on to her back to look at him and he hovered above her, a look of concern on his face.
"What was it like when you died?" she quietly asked.
"I don't know." He said with a frown. "I was shot, then I just felt like I drifted off then woke up in transition. Why did something happen to you?"
She shook her head, biting her bottom lip and glancing away before finally nodding.
"What?" He pushed.
"I heard her, right before I woke up." She confessed.
"Heard who?" He asked, puzzled.
"Mads. It's like, I was sleeping then I heard her. I know it was her because I will always know my sister but she called me Macks, that was my nickname before she died and I refused to let people call me that since then. She just said 'Macks, I'm sorry.' Sorry for what? For leaving me? Because I had to go back? because of this stupid ring? I hate it. I don't want it."
She pulled it off and threw it across the room before bursting into tears. Damon could only watch helplessly, staring at where she had thrown the ring before looking back at the sobbing red head. He reached out his arms and pulled her to him, letting her cry it out.
When she had finally calmed down and was sniffling against his chest, he pulled back, brushing her hair away from her face as he used the pad of his thumbs to wipe the tears off her cheek. He knew she would be furious at him for this but he just wanted to take her pain away and she would never know anyway.
"Kenzie, look at me." He whispered.
She looked up at him, staring into his beautiful blue eyes.
"I need to tell you something but you can't remember it."
"What?" She asked, confused.
"I tried not to believe it but when you died, I realized something, Katherine was right, I'm in love with you Mackenzie. I thought I was only sticking around for Elena but suddenly that changed to you. I've stuck around for you because somehow I've fallen in love with you but I don't deserve you. You try hard to be a bitch but deep down you have a big heart and because of that, I don't deserve you, no matter how perfect you may seem for me because I will only get you killed and you seem ready to welcome death with open arms."
"Damon." She whispered, staring down at the hand that she usually wore her ring on before lifting it to his cheek, leaning forward to kiss him. "Please don't make me forget that."
He kissed her back before grabbing her hand and lowering it. He briefly closed his eyes, a tear slipping down his cheek before opening them again and holding her gaze so he could compel her. "I want you to forget any feelings you might have for me and forget what I just told you. I want you to forget about what happened tonight, all of it. You did not die tonight; you don't know what your ring is capable of so you will continue to wear it because it protects you from being compelled. You went to the party, Tyler ditched you so we hung out and I brought you back here while I left to go deal with Katherine. When you get up in the morning, your life will go on as it has, we will remain friends because I'm too selfish to completely lose you."
He kissed her on the forehead, laying her head back down on the pillow.
Mackenzie blinked and turned over, seeing she was alone in bed. Tyler was such a jerk, ditching her tonight, at least Damon had come to her rescue. Oh well, now she knew. Kenzie yawned, briefly wondering where Damon was but she was too tired to go look. Another yawn as she adjusted the ring on her finger before closing her eyes and falling asleep.
… … …
I don't know how people are going to react to the whole ring thing, BUT let me say that there IS a story behind Kenzie having one, where it came from, whom gave it to Kenzie and the person who gave it to Kenzie how they got it and so on. Trust me... this story carries on, all will be explained. thanks :)