Chapter 33
Damon steps through the front door of Caroline's house and raises an eyebrow at the three women waiting at the end of the foyer. He pauses, feeling like Bosley preparing to update the Angels on the latest case. Or would that make him Charlie?
"Did you find Stefan?" Elena asks from between Bonnie and Caroline. Damon opens his mouth to answer but stops to glance back at vampire Elena groaning behind him.
Stuck in the doorway, she rubs her nose and scrunches her face. "I'm not invited in."
"You've never been invited into my house?" Caroline steps forward and narrows her eyes. "Are you sure that you're Elena? If you were really my friend, wouldn't you have been to my house in the last 200 hundred years. Besides, I can't believe Elena would ever cut her hair like that."
Everyone glances at vampire Elena while she runs a hand through her short, angled cut. "What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing. It's super cute, but it's not Elena."
"She's from 200 years in the future, Caroline. I'm betting that both you and Elena have changed a lot in that time," Bonnie says.
"I guess." Caroline frowns. "But we're still close, right? How could you not be allowed into my house?"
"Oh, you're close," Damon says, '"as close as sisters."
Vampire Elena presses her lips into a tight smile as she tries not to roll her eyes at Damon and looks at Caroline instead. "Don't worry. I've been invited into this house and every other house you've lived in over the centuries. But that's in my timeline where I'm a vampire. In this timeline, I'm human, so I guess I need to be re-invited."
"What about Caroline? She's a vampire in both timelines," human Elena asks.
"The invites transfer across the timelines, so she can go in and out anywhere that she's been invited in either timeline."
"How many times have you guys done this?" Bonnie asks as she rubs the goosebumps on her bare arms. "Time travel isn't supposed to be possible. It feels wrong."
"I'm sorry about that. Witches are sensitive to the magic left by the portal, so that feeling is not going away until I do. You'll probably still feel a mild unease until the portal closes, and we're all back to where, or when, we belong."
"And when's that going to happen?" Damon asks, but everyone ignores him.
From the doorway, Elena tilts her head and stares at Bonnie with nostalgic grin. "I know this is a lot for you, but I gotta say, it's so good to see you, Bonnie."
"It's super weird to see you like this."
"Weird or not, I still want to hug you."
Bonnie chuckles and shuffles past Damon and onto the porch. Vampire Elena lights up and welcomes one of her best friends with open arms.
"Guys," Caroline whines from the small hallway, and Bonnie waves her to join them in the group hug.
Human Elena remains on the opposite end of foyer with her arms wrapped around her midsection. She chews on her bottom lip as she waits for her friends to finish. She doesn't want to interrupt the tender moment, but she really wants to hear the latest on Stefan. Damon called a couple of hours ago to warn her about Stefan's threat, then again twenty minutes ago to say he was coming over to speak with Bonnie.
"Did you find Stefan? Has he hurt anyone?"
"Besides you?" Damon asks. He can see the concern in her brown eyes for her not-so-saintly boyfriend, but he also spots a flicker of fear.
Damon steps closer to offer the allusion of privacy and slips a comforting hand over her arm. "Are you okay?"
Elena's heart jumps at the tender touch, and the sticky note burns in her back pocket. She meets his blue gaze, and her cheeks redden at his proximity. She can't stop her eyes from falling to his lips for an instant before she pulls away from him.
"I'm fine." She shakes her head and turns her back to him. "I'm just...I'm scared."
Damon bites back a growl. Elena shouldn't be afraid, certainly not of the man she loves. Why couldn't Stefan have learned to be a normal vampire? Why did it have to be all or nothing with him?
"Caroline," Damon calls, and her head pops out from the group hug. "Has Stefan been invited into this house?"
She shakes her head. "No, only you and Katherine. Oh, and me."
The girls on the porch break away from each other, and vampire Elena shakes her head at the younger version of her husband. She can see where this is going. Everyone can.
"You're not really expecting Elena to hide away here, are you?" Bonnie asks as she storms into the house. "That's not a solution."
He sneers at the pint-sized witch. "What's your plan? Pretend like nothing's happened? Just go to school and hope Stefan plays hooky?"
"Caroline and I have classes with Elena all day. We'll keep her safe."
"How's a baby vampire and a half-baked witch going to stop a 150-year-old vampire on a ripper binge?"
Human Elena scrunches her brow in confusion. "What do you mean..."
Damon interrupts her with a groan and clutches at his head while Bonnie stares at him with fierce concentration. Caroline and Elena gasp as Damon falls to his knees in pain, while vampire Elena frowns in the open doorway.
"Bonnie..."
"What are you doing?" Caroline asks.
"He asked how I would stop Stefan. I'm just giving him a demonstration of why he shouldn't underestimate me."
"I think we get it, Bonnie. You're a badass. Half-baked or not." Vampire Elena breathes easier when Bonnie relaxes and Damon stops squirming on the ground. "I'm glad that you're here to help, but Stefan isn't going to go after your Elena. He can't. Klaus won't let him."
"He still needs me for the ritual and my blood for making hybrids." Elena raises her head as she remembers the memories about Stefan without his humanity and how he treated her. "I'm just a walking blood bag to him now."
"No, Stefan loves you," Caroline says. "Whatever is going on with him, that's not going to change."
Back on his feet and glaring at Bonnie, Damon scoffs at Caroline. "Except that he's not the Stefan that you all know anymore."
"He's right," vampire Elena says. "Stefan isn't feeling anything but anger right now. When that happened in my timeline, he was manipulative and ruthless. He even managed to strong-arm Klaus."
"The big, bad, 1000-year-old hybrid? That sounds like a good thing. How'd he manage to do that?" Damon asks.
"He forced me to drink his blood and nearly drove us off Wickery Bridge. Stefan will do whatever it takes to get what he wants." She raises her hand and points a stern finger at Damon. "Do not call his bluff if he threatens anything or anyone."
"That's not on the timeline," Bonnie says. "When did that happen?"
"What are you talking about? It happened when I was human during my senior year."
Caroline picks up an index card from her kitchen table and pulls a marker from her back pocket. She scribbles something on the card and darts into the living room around the corner.
"Was this before or after you stabbed Klaus' sister in the back?" Caroline calls from the other room.
"You did what?" Damon raises an eyebrow at vampire Elena and shuffles after Caroline. Bonnie follows him, but Elena hesitates. She worries about what Damon may learn or infer from the timeline they've created.
What if he figures it out? What if he thinks...It doesn't matter. She shakes her head and steps into the living room. I love Stefan.
"Rebekah?" Vampire Elena says through the open front door. She careens her head, trying in vain to see around the corners of the house. "I guess it was after. Why?"
"Woah." Damon stares at the timeline spanning the entire living room wall. "You guys had a busy morning."
"We were trying to help Elena make sense of everything she learned last night," Bonnie says.
"You've seen this much of the future from the memory strikes?" Damon asks as Elena steps through the archway.
She lifts her chin, preparing to take his questions head on, only to find him barely looking over his shoulder at her. She wonders at his feelings and thoughts as his eyes roam the wall, but it's obvious he doesn't want to share. And a wave of relief washes over Elena. She can't figure out how she feels about everything; why should she burden herself about his feelings? Yet, her gaze lingers on his sharp profile. She watches Damon study the timeline scrawled across the living room wall, and she wonders at his thoughts that drive his face to twist and tighten with a glowering intensity.
"It's hard to understand everything because it's always out of context," Elena says, "but yeah...I've learned some interesting things about our future."
Damon freezes and glances at Elena. Our?
Before he can press her, Caroline chimes in. "Yeah, like how you and Bonnie are best friends."
He snorts, but follows the blondes pointed finger to the sticky note that reads: 'Bonnie and Damon are friends.'
"This is a joke."
"Nope," vampire Elena says from outside the living room window. "It's true. Can someone open the window please?"
Caroline fumbles with the shades while Damon looks Bonnie up and down. She crosses her arms and glares back at him.
"Don't look at me. The future is strange."
Thanking Caroline for her help, vampire Elena peers through the open window and beams. "This is awesome. What a great idea."
"So where should we put this one?" Caroline asks, holding the index card about Stefan's threatening car ride.
"Hmm, I'd put it after the night I stabbed Rebekah in the back, but before Jeremy cut off someone's head. No wait, it was after that, but before I turned."
Caroline pins the card to the timeline as directed, then turns back to vampire Elena with her marker poised over a stack of cards. "So what else happened when Stefan flipped his switch in you timeline? Maybe we can use that to figure out what he's up to now."
Bonnie flashes her friend a big smile. "That's a good idea, Caroline."
"Damon said that you guys were looking for whatever presents Stefan promised. Did you find anything?" Human Elena asks her counterpart from the other side of the room. She's careful to respect the ten-foot rule.
"No, Damon, Caroline and I scoured the town, but we didn't find anything out of the norm. Which is weird. I figured we'd at least find some bodies."
"Do you really think he's turning people instead of killing them. That's why he took the blood bags from the freezer?"
Vampire Elena tilts her head from side to side. "Maybe. He may also just be messing with us. Without his humanity, there's nothing to keep the ripper in check."
"Ripper?" Elena glances at Damon. "You mentioned that word before. What does it mean?"
Damon cringes, and vampire Elena's eyes widen at him. "You haven't told her?"
"It hasn't come up," he shrugs. "Of course, my baby brother leaves it to me to spill the beans on his not-so-saintly activities."
"What does that mean, Damon?"
"It means that if we don't stop him, your boyfriend will leave a trail of bodies that'll make Ted Bundy feel like a chump."
"I know he has control issues when it comes to human blood, but we can find him and lock him up," Elena says, but pauses when her request sounds familiar. "Like last time."
"This is different. His humanity's gone. Lights out. No one's home."
"It's not just his bloodlust," vampire Elena says, and Damon snaps his head up. She ignores his glare, noting his reluctance to tell Elena everything. She deserves to know the whole truth, even when it's hard to stomach. Vampire Elena handled it just fine two hundred years ago, and human Elena can do the same. "Stefan is a ripper. Which means that when he feeds he loses control and feeds hard enough to severe limbs and heads."
"Like with Lucy Bennet?" Bonnie asks, grimacing at the loss of a family member that she never had the chance to meet.
"No, that was because of the werewolf venom. He was sick," human Elena says. "Stefan didn't mean to do that."
"You're right that he didn't mean to do it, but it didn't happen because of the werewolf venom. At least, it wasn't the only reason. It can happen anytime that he loses control."
Caroline gasps and closes her eyes against the welling tears. "And without his humanity, there's nothing to stop him."
"Except we know the future," Bonnie says. "So we can stay one step a head of him and stop him from hurting anyone else."
Damon snorts. "You'd think that'd be case, otherwise what's the point in having two time travelers running around. Unfortunately, all they seem to be capable of doing is make things worse."
Vampire Elena sighs. He's right. She and Caroline hadn't made things easy on Damon or anyone else in this timeline. The only good thing she'd manage to do was kill Katherine. And regain some of her lost memories.
"You're right, Damon. We've completely derailed this timeline. It will never be the same, but Caroline and I will do what we can to help. We'll find Stefan and stop him." She turns to human Elena. "We'll undo whatever spell the twins cast, and bring him home to you."
"But you said that you couldn't find him," human Elena says.
"Caroline thinks that the girls are cloaking him. The longer he stays hidden, the longer we'll keep looking for him, and the more time they have to enact Klaus's plan."
"So if we find the twins, we find Stefan," Caroline says. "How do we do that?"
Damon raises his hand and smirks. "I have an idea. That's why I'm here. Not that I haven't enjoyed this meeting of the minds between the best and brightest that Mystic Falls High has to offer."
"We just figured you came to see Elena," Bonnie says with a smirk, and Damon narrows his eyes at her, but she doesn't flinch. "Is the future version not as good as the real deal?"
"Ouch." Vampire Elena sticks her lip out.
"Actually I came to see you, Bonnie Bennet."
She blinks then frowns at him. "What do you want?"
"I want a locator spell, but future Blondie says they won't work on someone protected by cloaking magic."
"Okay." She shrugs. "Then what do you want from me?"
"I want a spell that detects nearby magic."
"How would that help?" human Elena asks, then glances around the room. "Unless you think they're nearby."
"They could be, and we'd never know it," vampire Elena says from the window.
"If only we had something to point the way." Damon pulls the Gilbert compass from his pocket and flips it open. The enchanted needle wobbles between him and vampire Elena.
"Doesn't that point to vampires? Why do you have it?" Caroline asks.
Human Elena groans. "You stole that from my room."
He smirks at her until Bonnie snatches the ancient device from his hand.
"I've seen this in Emily's grimoire. She made it for John Gilbert over a century ago. Along with a ring and that device..."
"The device you promised to sabotage, but didn't. And John nearly killed me because of it."
"I did what I thought was right. And that device helped save a lot of innocent people from the tomb vampires, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah." Damon waves a hand. "But what about lifting the existing magic on this thing, and replacing it with new magic."
Bonnie's mouth slides open as she considers the request. She stares down at the small metal contraption, feeling the tiny vibration of magic in her palm. "Maybe."
"But if it's supposed to point to nearby magic, won't it just point at itself?" human Elena asks.
"That's a good point," Caroline says. "When I was still alive, Damon had to call me whenever he wanted to use it to find another vampire."
"Yeah, it just kept spinning in circles when I held it. Can you make it...I don't know...ignore itself?"
"No," Bonnie says, still staring a hole through it.
"This is a good idea," vampire Elena says. "You can do this. You're Bonnie Bennet."
The short witch lifts her gaze to Elena's brown eyes. "I've never done anything like this before."
"No one has. That's why I know you can do it," vampire Elena says with a smile.
Human Elena offers the same encouraging grin. "Bonnie, you do a lot of amazing, wonderful things in the future. I don't need a time traveler to tell me that."
Damon watches Bonnie swell with confidence, and he rolls his eyes at the pep talk. "So are you going to do it or not?"
Her glowing expression sours at him. "No, I can't make it detect nearby magic. But I can make it point at a nearby witch."
"Even better."
"But I'm not giving it to you."
"What? Why? It was my idea."
Bonnie huffs at him. "I'm not giving you a device to help you hunt down and kill witches."
"We're not going to kill them," vampire Elena says.
"Yeah, aren't they my future kids or something," Caroline adds.
Bonnie ignores her friends and glares at Damon, who stares back in a telling silence. When the other girls realize he isn't assuring Bonnie of his intentions, they all pause to watch him. He feels the weight of their gazes. Bonnie and Caroline glare at him like he's a monster, while the two Elenas stare at him with expectations. He doesn't know which is worse.
Human Elena shakes her head. "Damon, you can't hurt them."
When he remains quiet, eyes still locked with Bonnie, Elena steps closer to slip a hand onto his arm. "They're Caroline's kids."
At her touch, Damon breaks his stalemate and turns to Elena. His crystal blue eyes meet her brown. He wants to scream that he doesn't care about Caroline nor her psycho kids. He doesn't care that they're also Stefan's kids and therefore his nieces. He doesn't care about anyone from the future because it isn't his future. It isn't Elena's future. The time travelers are not and will never be them. Because if they ever become them, Elena would become sired to him, and he'd be stuck in a torture fit for hell.
He opens his mouth to tell her how little he cares about the well-being of the murder twins, but Elena's imploring expression stops him. She looks at him like she's searching for something, and he wants her to find it. Whatever it is.
"Fine. I'll be nice."
"You mean, you won't try to murder them?" Caroline asks.
"I said, I wouldn't," he snaps.
Vampire Elena shakes her head. "It doesn't matter whether you want to kill them or not, Damon. You can't do it. They're too powerful. They'd crush you."
"Excuse me? I think I can hold my own."
"Caroline is the only one who has a chance to talk the girls down. But if we can find them, you and I can stop Stefan."
"Great, it sounds like we have a plan," Damon says, then snaps his head to Bonnie. "And it all hinges on you. No pressure."
"I'm still not giving it to you," she says, and Damon growls at her. She smirks and glances at vampire Elena. "But I will give it to you...if you promise to destroy it after returning to your timeline. I don't want this used against other witches."
"I promise, Bonnie. Thank you for trusting me."
Vampire Elena smiles at her long dead best friend, and Bonnie nods at her, still uneasy with her choice. But if she can trust any vampire, it's Elena.
"Great, let's get to it, shall we?" Damon waves his hands impatiently.
Bonnie rolls her eyes and stuffs the compass into her pocket. "I need Emily's grimoire to learn the spell she used. I'm not going to remove it. Instead, I want to tweak it."
"Come on, I'll help you pack your things," Caroline says. "We can stop by your house on the way to school."
Human Elena watches her two best friends leave the room, and a ball of anxiety springs to life within her stomach. She and Damon are alone in the living room with her vampire version watching from the window. He looks down at her, and she realizes that she's still holding his arm. Elena jerks her hand back and swallows a deep breath.
Damon notes the tension in the air and wonders what has Elena worked up. He watches her step back from him and avoid eye contact. Now that she isn't terrified or in shock, she doesn't want to get too close. She doesn't want him thinking she might care about him. He's not Stefan.
But she doesn't marry Stefan, he reminds himself. Damon glances at vampire Elena through the window and frowns. She's watching them, here eyes jumping from him to her and back like they're the latest enthralling telenovela. He clenches his jaw and turns his back to the window. He isn't anyone's entertainment.
Instead, he studies the timeline covering the wall, and human Elena watches him. Again she wonders at his thoughts on the future. Is he surprised by anything or everything? How does it differ from what he envisioned? It is something he's thought about before?
"It's not what I expected," Elena says, and Damon pauses, but he doesn't look at her. "Even after learning about vampires and witches, I thought things would calm down and get back to some semblance of normal."
He snickers. "Elena, even if you weren't dating a vampire, your life was never going to stay normal for long. You're a doppelgänger and, apparently, very valuable to certain immortal hybrids."
"Yeah, so I've heard."
He glances at her with raised eyebrows and points to a card on the wall. "Care to explain this?"
It reads 'Damon and Bonnie die.' Elena hides a small smile and points to a card further down the timeline. 'Bonnie and Damon come back to life.'
"Well that's good to know," he murmurs while reviewing the rest of the cards.
Elena watches his eyes pause on the card about him confessing his love and then compelling her to forget. A flurry of butterflies burst into life insider her chest, and she holds her breath. But he doesn't comment. Instead, his eyes continue roaming, and she releases a silent sigh. That could've been awkward.
"What about this one?" Damon tugs a card free of its pin and flashes it at Elena.
"That's a good question." She spins toward vampire Elena. "How did Stefan end up trapped in the quarry?"
The older doppelgänger pauses at the shift in topics. "Uh... Silas. He locked Stefan in a safe and dropped him in the quarry."
"The super old and powerful witch with all the doppelgängers?" Damon asks.
"That's him."
"I think Stefan mentioned him. You told him that Silas is desiccating in a cave somewhere," human Elena says. "How can we keep him there and away from Stefan, so he doesn't get hurt in this timeline?"
"Just don't go looking for him. He wasn't easy to find, so no one's going to stumble across him. Even if you did, you'd need a Bennet witch to open the door."
"Why did you go looking for him? If he was that hard to find, why do it?" Human Elena watches her counterpart sigh and shake her head.
"A stupid idea that didn't pan out. It definitely wasn't worth it. Too many people were hurt or killed. Not just Stefan, but Jeremy and Bonnie too."
"Well, that's an easy fix. Don't go looking for trouble, and it won't go looking for you," Damon says.
Human Elena glances at him and nods, and he meets her gaze in silent agreement. With the knowledge of what the future holds, they will protect their loved ones from harm. Elena will keep Jeremy and Bonnie alive, and Damon will keep Stefan from ending up in a safe.
Elena frowns as she considers something. "In one of the memories that I saw, Stefan told Caroline that he'd spent the summer drowning. Why did it take us so long to find him?"
Vampire Elena's eyes widen at the question before darting between her younger version and Damon. "Well, no one really knew he was missing."
"What? How's that possible?" Elena asks, but Damon grimaces. He knows of the possibility and likelihood of one of the Salvatores not realizing the other is in danger. He'd spent five years caged and experimented on with his brother none the wiser. For the first time, he wonders how often over the century Stefan had gotten into trouble without him knowing he needed rescuing.
Vampire Elena's mouth twists in guilt as she sighs. "Everyone thought Stefan had left town, so it took us a while to figure out that he was in trouble."
"What do you mean? Why would he leave town? Was he in trouble like with Klaus?" Human Elena asks, to which her vampire counterpart shakes her head.
"No, he wasn't forced to leave...he chose to leave. I just can't remember why."
"Oh..." Human Elena's face falls as she realizes the reason for the vampire's hazy memory. It was another casualty to the memory wipe. The memory wipe that only affected memories of Damon. Which meant that Stefan left because of Damon and, mostly likely, Elena. She slips her hand into her back pocket, fingering the thin paper note that burns a hole in her jeans. She now knows where that note belongs on the timeline, and she stares at the empty spot on the wall. A terrifying ball forms in her stomach, and the air in her lungs dissipates. She sucks in a shallow breath then another, but her body burns for more oxygen.
Damon watches Elena start to hyperventilate and leaps to her side. She bends over trying to catch her breath, and he places a hand to the small of her back.
"Elena, what's wrong?"
"Everything," she manages between pants. "I'm going to die."
"No, you're not. Elena..."
"Stefan is going to hate me. He already does." Tears well, and she tries to wipe them away, but they flow too fast. "I'm going to turn into a vampire."
"Elena, stop," he whispers, and she raises her head to meet his gaze.
"I don't want to be this person, Damon," she motions to the timeline on the wall. "I love Stefan. I don't want to betray him."
She means, with me. She doesn't want to betray Stefan with me. Damon squirms from the hot poker she just stabbed into his chest. She knows we're together in the future, and she doesn't want it to happen. Does she know that it's because of the sire bond?
He opens his mouth to ask, but he can't say the words. He can't voice the awful truth, the shame that his future self would accept Elena's affection knowing she's compelled by magic. Instead, he makes a vow.
"It won't happen. None of it. This timeline is trashed thanks to our visitors, and I'll make sure to tie up all the loose ends. You don't want to die nor become a vampire? No problem. I'll have Blondie from the future write down every idiot that might threaten you, and I'll go play anatomy bingo."
Elena offers a small smile under sad eyes. "It's not just that..."
"Yeah, I know. You don't want Stefan mad at you. Don't worry, this isn't the guy you know. I'll track him down, get him into blood rehab courtesy of our cellar slash dungeon, and return him to you in his original broody packaging. That way you guys can make up and hold hands while walking into the sunset, or whatever the cool kids are doing these days."
"You don't understand, Damon. In the future, we're..."
"I understand." Damon lifts his hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. His fingers graze her hot skin as his thumb caresses her cheek, and she's captured by his icy gaze. "I know what their future was like, but that's not our future."
Speechless, she watches his eyes darken with a bitterness in which she's seen him suffer countless times. It's the sour taste of spending an eternity in his brother's shadow and never being good enough. With a shrug, he swallows the harsh truth of her rejection and offers a crooked smile.
"You don't have to worry about the future, Elena," he whispers, but she isn't as certain. Her eyes drop to his lips, and she takes a shaky breath while her heart drums in her chest.
Vampire Elena watches the exchange with bated breath. She wonders if her first love journey with her Damon was as strife with sexual tension. She melts at Damon's vow to forget a future with human Elena in order to make her happy, even if it's with his brother. It's reminiscent of her husband's promise to forgive and forget the memories she'd cast aside of their first love story. She understands now how big a sacrifice he made for her, and she loves him all the more for it. A barrage of suspense has her on the tips of her toes, waiting to see if the couple's lips meet, or if they're just going to stare into each other's souls until the end of time.
"Ugh, you guys are killing me," she mutters under her breath, but Damon hears her. He narrows his eyes and jerks his head toward her. He steps away from human Elena, who uses the moment to gather herself. Damon strolls to the window and yanks the glass down in vampire Elena's face and drops the drapes closed.
Across town, Sheriff Forbes arrives at the Lockwood mansion, Carol Lockwood rushes out to the porch to greet her. She hustles the sheriff to the fountain in the backyard, revealing the corpse of a high school student. The young woman lies draped across the fountain rim, looking into the sky with dead eyes. Sheriff Forbes swallows the pain and loss that springs forward when she recognizes the victim. A dark-haired girl in the same grade as Caroline. Someone she watched grow up and with whose parents she shared chaperoning duties. Someone that she will never see go off to college now.
While Carol sobs at the loss of another life in Mystic Falls, Sheriff Forbes takes a deep breath and nudges aside the bright red bow glued to the girl's chest. She tugs free the note pinned underneath and unfolds it with a dread that threatens to drag her to the ground. It reads: 'Dana Esposito: doppelgänger collateral damage'.
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