15: All Resistance Wearing Thin.

Damon stared wide-eyed at yet another doppelganger as she stumbled around the warehouse shouting to be left alone. His eye almost twitched a little. Being so focused on Amara having the same face as Katherine and Elena he didn't notice the weight coming down on his chest. "Are you real?" He asked her.

Amara jumped a little. Her eyes kept darting around at nothing. "Are you?" Finally when she laid eyes on him she jerked backwards fearfully. "Stay away from me!"

He rolled his eyes. "Sorry, crazy pants, not gonna happen." When he reached for her, she actually fought back and slapped his hand away with all the force she could muster.

"I see it," she hissed as she attempted to back away again. "I see it climbing all across you just like her. You are one of them. You are one of hers."

"Look, if you're talking about Tessa, or Qetsiyah-"

Amara shook her head quickly. "Worse than Qetsiyah. Worse than us all. The darkness she touched… I see it on you! I know you are one of them! I knew there would be more and she should have been stopped long ago!"

Damon opened his mouth to say what he realized then, when the weight inside of his chest turned to an icy electric pain that brought him to his knees. He grit his teeth against the pain; something about it felt like Nova. "Saskia," he answered quickly while he had the breath. "You're afraid of Saskia Vasile. I'm not a Vasile, I swear."

"But you are bound to one," Amara argued. "That is why you feel what you do right now. She has touched the same darkness that Saskia did."

What the hell could you possibly be up to now, Nova? He groaned in his thoughts.

"So, what," Nova commented as she twirled the engraved little talisman in her slender fingers, "we get to do magic now?"

Zina sat stiffly on the couch with her gaze fixated on her own talisman. Something else was clearly haunting her. "As long as you don't try to do something ridiculous and screw it up," she replied quietly.

The elder sibling rolled her eyes as she sipped a glass of bourbon. "Listen, it's bad enough Sofia handed us these tacky little things before taking off like some vanishing act, but what fucked you up so bad in there that you've shrunk down to a tiny prawn?"

She was silent for a long moment before her lips trembled slightly and she spoke. "I found out what penance the spell took."

Nova's brow quirked upwards. She sat her glass slowly down on the table before it reached her lips again. "What did it take, Zina?"

Nova had to physically stand in front of her sister for Zina to finally look up at her. There was something vacant and disturbed in her onyx eyes. "Me." Her voice cracked a little. "It bound me to Oblivion, making me its anchor just like the one to the Other Side."

"How is that even doable? You're a living thing… for all intents and purposes."

"And so is the anchor to the Other Side; two-thousand years old, immortal, part of the trifecta that screwed over Qetsiyah."

Nova's face contorted. "Amara? You mean to tell me that bitch is alive too after all of this fucking time? So, what, you two have one foot in the real world and one not? Pretty sure that's how at least most schizophrenics feel, sis."

"I'm serious, Nova. And yes, I think it's exactly like that. I can glimpse into the deceased with the help of my bracelet. I'm a Vasile vampire turned with Petrova doppelganger blood none-the-less. I was resurrected after being dead for over a century."

"Alright, fine, so what exactly is this anchor bullshit going to do to you? Gods knows we don't know a damn thing about Amara or what Qetsiyah's done with her the last couple of centuries."

Zina opened her mouth to say something when the front door flew open. She leaped to her feet, both sisters quickly stashing their talismans in their pockets. Jeremy stormed in, visibly upset, and went straight for the table of bourbon. "What's got your panties in a bunch?" Nova spoke first having no emotions.

"It didn't work," he replied briskly as he chugged down half a glass. "Silas found out the anchor was Amara, awoke her with his blood that cured her, and vanished. We couldn't get Bonnie back."

Both of Nova's brows raised that time and she gently elbowed her sister behind Jeremy's back with a subtle smirk. An ominous chill crept painfully up Zina's spine suddenly. She resisted the urge to shudder in front of her sister and Jeremy but she knew damn well that the energy just wasn't right.

"You care for that human boy, yes?"

Zina's eyes slid nonchalantly over to a nearby chair where a woman sat suddenly. Her hair was long, straight, and snow white much like her flesh. She wore a dark purple, bell sleeved blouse, black slacks, and purple heels. Her eyes were even more light blue and piercing than Damon's. They felt as if they were slicing right through whatever Zina might have had for a soul. Could neither Nova nor Jeremy see her?

Oblivion, she morbidly realized which made the woman grin even with how bored her icy eyes were.

"It is just you and me, child. They cannot see, hear, or feel me as you are the only thing that connects me to this world. I was thinking it over, though, and I suppose I could do with some sort of name. Always being referred to as the Darkness, or the Empty, or Oblivion all of the time is rather exhausting. Gets boring as well." She paused, almost waiting for Zina to speak, when she laughed lightly. "Oh, that's right, first timer. You must be petrified to respond to me. Wise, currently, as you cannot phase between realms yet. I wonder if you will be half as talented as Valora is."

"Tell them it's for the best, Jer," came Bonnie's voice. Zina's eye twitched a little.

Oblivion sighed and rolled her eyes. "Why is that supposed to be consoling from one human to another? Why bother attempting to console one another? They all die off eventually with this misconstrued pretense that they will become angels in Heaven. Human souls can't become angels. Who even started that rumor?"

Zina stood there while everyone talked back and forth, practically forgotten. Oblivion commented away relentlessly, Bonnie tried to console Jeremy, and the next thing she knew she was hearing whispers. Watching Bonnie stare up at Jeremy with sad and loving eyes… it made Zina vulnerable. The whispers grew louder until she heard about twenty different voices. Some she could understand as they begged for recompense or to be released from their eternal prison. She would have figured the way she was beginning to lose her grip that she would hear her own vitals in her ears, yet she heard nothing of herself.

"The girl without a heart," Oblivion commented. "That is why you are my anchor, Zina Arete. When Niklaus took your life by ripping your beating your heart from your chest, not even Lucifer could give you one back with your life. It's not terribly important, not that I've noticed anyway." She shrugged. "I don't have one. It has never bothered me. Then again, I've also been locked away on an astral plane for eons. Family always does have the easiest access to ruin you in the end, child."

"I need to go," Zina muttered quickly. She just caught everyone's attention before she zoomed out the door, completely unreachable.

"Okay," Damon drawled. "Well, Amara's been cured, which is even worse because now she's easy to kill, so the fate of the Other Side, where Bonnie currently resides, rests on a living, breathing human being that we now need to protect."

Nova's maroon lips pulled into a deep frown. "We need to protect?"

Damon guided the Romanian and her progeny outside to the vehicle where he opened the back hatch and revealed another Petrova doppelganger bound, gagged, and freaking out. "Ladies, meet Crazy Pants. Crazy Pants, meet Elena and Nova."

As soon as Amara laid eyes on Nova and recognized her as a Vasile she started to flail even harder. Nova's mouth was ajar as she stared at yet another look alike. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."

"What are you doing here?" Stefan questioned when he saw Tessa sitting on his bed.

Her face was paler than normal but it didn't mask the spiteful emotions. "Do you have any idea what it's like watching history repeat itself?"

"You're hurt. I can heal you."

"No, no. I want this wound. It's a reminder of what you really are. See, memories are important. I made a mistake when I found you. I eased your pain. You used to have a lot of pain. Remember?" She raised her hand in his direction and he doubled over in pain. "You killed your own father and forced your brother to become a vampire." She continued on as Stefan clutched his head in agony. "And that wasn't even the start of your reign of terror. As soon as you laid eyes on innocent, human Nova Vasile you became enraged with hatred. You helped make her the monster she is today by giving her an outlet for a hatred she never should have had. Then you found her."

"I'm Elena."

"I'm Stefan."

"Didn't last very long, did it?"

"Stop it," Stefan pleaded. "Stop it, please!"

"What the hell happened here?"

"I don't know, father. She… she was belligerent. And fell."

"Now someone who never wanted to be a vampire is one. Even better: she's the creation of the woman you despised for so long. But the ending's the best part because you actually felt real pain. Physical pain. Torture. Remember?"

"Hello, my shadow self."

"You were trapped in a safe and tossed in a quarry. Water flooded in. You tried to scream, you tried to escape, but all you could do was drown over and over and over again. The only thing keeping you sane was that one day one of the two people you loved would come rescue you, but they didn't. I did. Always remember that."

Nova had locked herself in her bedroom, refusing to answer even for Damon. She couldn't reach Zina, Zarya was drowning in her own issues, and there was yet another gods damn doppelganger. Hatred was clawing up her spine and across her icy heart. How could that one face have continuously haunted her through a century and a half? She wanted nothing more than to murder them all. She didn't even care about Elena being her progeny anymore. She never cared about Katerina being Zina's sire. The only thing truly holding her back was that if she killed Amara then she would lose everyone on the Other Side. And there was no way for her to have enough control to shred just one or two of them. No, if she was going to finally get rid of that gods forsaken Petrova line then it would be all of them in one swift go. Yet even with no sign of her humanity she knew she couldn't just decimate the Other Side. She couldn't feel why, but in her mind she knew.

Siya. Katia. Alina. Clara. Nessa. The dhampirs.

Gods only knew who else for just Vasiles, let alone anyone worth wild from Mystic Falls. She thought of Bonnie, but then her sister's face flashed before her eyes. Who would have figured over a century in a supernatural purgatory would have caused Zina to care for Jeremy Gilbert of all creatures? Even if Zina wouldn't admit it to herself, Nova recognized that strangely gentle look to a lovesick girl's eyes. She saw it in her own eyes for far too long.

Nova had once remotely cared about Bonnie Bennett. She was a magnificent witch and a decent person. Yet she had come to realize that she and Zina had been pitted against one another with purpose by Remiel. When it came down to it, somehow even without her humanity and emotions, Nova remained loyal to her twin. Things could have been so different under other circumstances.

Thoughts of Zina, Zarya, Damon, and everything happening flooded the Romanian's brain and made her head spin. Memories haunted her, visions tormented her, yet still she could not find that fucking switch. Nova wanted to feel again. She clawed around hopelessly in an attempt to dig through yet nothing she tried could make her feel a damn thing. No amount of love for Damon, no loyalty to Zina, no desire to protect Zarya, not even the will to live anymore. Everything had cracked and broke around her. As each piece fell it shattered when it reached the bottom.

That was when she realized the horrible truth: her humanity switch had been fried. She flashed back to Lebanon and helping Zarya, recalling Remiel's clutch on her skull and the rapid Enochian and Verbis Diablo. Sure, she had been attempting to breech Nova's mind and take over but Nova's will to fight back caused a surge. When the hostile takeover back fired it destroyed the part of Nova that gave her the will to change and feel. So she could morally know in her mind when something was right or wrong, but there was no possible way for her to feel a connection to anything. Even if she acknowledged that doing something was wrong it might not be possible for her to stop herself from doing it anyways because she wouldn't care that it was wrong.

Nova began to panic as the thoughts of murdering the doppelgangers grew stronger. After hours of being locked tight her door finally flung open and she half jogged over to Damon's room, hoping for some kind of solace. A dark chill began to creep up her spine when she found the room empty. Her foot took a step backwards to leave, but her body remained still in the middle of the room. She wasn't sure what made her remain there, staring at the empty room. Part of her could still feel her beloved's presence around the room. She could hear faint echoes of the memories they shared, the laughs that rang through the nights. Her hand ghosted over her clothed upper thigh where her tattoo for him would forever be.

She wasn't sure how something so miniscule caught her eye, but it did. Nova managed to notice the smallest difference between a couple of floor boards almost under the bed. It looked as if one had been taken up and put down a fair handful of times. Her body moved on its own towards the board. She slowly dropped to her knees with her eyes never leaving the one wooden board. Her hand reached out to brush against the wood, feeling the difference. It was a little hidey hole. With minimal effort she was able to take up the board and find what laid beneath: a slightly ornate black box. Removing the box from the hole in the floor she lifted the lid to find dozens of envelopes with her name in Damon's beautiful cursive across each front.

For the first time in too long she felt a thud inside of her chest. The simple gesture startled her enough to slam the box shut and take off with it without putting the floor board back down.

"Morning," Elena greeted with a gentle smile after Stefan awoke from another nightmare about drowning in the quarry. "I made coffee. How did you sleep?"

"Not great," he muttered before taking the mug from her. "So, uh, what's with the wake up call?"

Elena looked down and away, avoiding eye contact. "I miss you…" She admitted. "I feel like when you lost your memories, I lost a part of myself too. And I was thinking," finally she looked back to him, "instead of just describing how much we meant to each other, maybe we could just start fresh." She smiled again and held her hand out to him. "Hi, I'm Elena."

He stared at her blankly for a moment before finally responding. "I was driving to Portland."

"What?"

"The night I took Silas to the quarry, after I brought you home, I helped Damon lock Nova in the basement, left, I said goodbye to Lexi, and then I decided to keep driving west."

"Wait, hang on; how do you remember that?"

"Because my memories are back."

"Really? Are you serious? How?"

"Tessa came here last night and she undid whatever spell fried my brain and it's all back. I can remember everything."

Elena smiled brightly and hugged Stefan. "Stefan, this is great!" He remained stiff beneath her hug which prompted her to pull away. "Isn't it…?"

"I remember everything, Elena. Including what I've done to Nova."

"What do you mean…? The accident that caused her to turn?"

He shook his head. "June 18, 1860." Her eyes widened.

[Flashback; Monday June 18, 1860]

"What are you doing, Nova?"

The ravenette jumped at the sound of Stefan's voice in her doorway as the floorboard fell back into its place. She was on her feet in a second with something clearly held behind her back and pink embarrassment on her cheeks. "I… I may have heard that today is Damon's birthday." She smiled softly.

Stefan's expression was rather cold and stiff. "We stopped celebrating our birthdays years ago, Nova. Just leave it alone."

Her head tilted to the side with a sorrowful curiosity in her emerald eyes. "What? But why? Is it not customary to exchange a gift on the day of your birth in this country? I merely wished to give him a token as if to say I am glad that he was born on this day. Is yours anytime soon, Stefan? Oh, and what about G-"

"Enough," he barked at her. "Yes, most people here will give a gift for someone's birthday but that is not what we do in this house. Not anymore. Whatever you were going to give him either keep it to yourself as it was or toss it in the garbage."

Her eyes widened and glossed over with the warning of tears before Stefan walked off. Her hands shook as they held a crystal bottle of Romanian Vasile brandy behind her back still. She pursed her lips into a tight line, refusing to give in and only craving to know what happened to the Salvatore family birthdays.

Some time later Stefan found the door to his father's study slightly ajar. Upon investigating he found Nova holding a familiar photo in her hands that had been kept in Giuseppe's desk drawer. "What the hell are you doing in here?!" He yelled.

The shout frightened Nova who dropped the photo onto the desk. Four faces stared back up: Stefan, Damon, Giuseppe, and a woman she could only assume was the brothers' mother. Stefan had been a young child in the photo, Damon possibly a teenager. "I- I do apologize, but I had to know what hurt you in such a way about a birthday. Is this it…?" She asked softly, holding the picture back up. "Is she the reason your heart cannot celebrate anymore?"

Stefan snatched the photo from her hand harshly, shoving her out of the way and putting it back in the drawer. "It is none of your damn business, Nova!" He yelled at her, causing her to shrink back some. "God, why the hell did you have to end up with us? So clueless and can never mind your own business. You should have just stayed in Romania. You don't belong here."

Tears welled up in the girl's bright eyes. "Why is it you do not like me, Stefan?" Her voice was small. "I did not ask to be here. I did not have a path laid out for me. I did not know the ship I boarded was coming here. All I wish to do is show you and your family how grateful I am that you took pity on my sudden arrival."

What was it that Stefan hated so much about Nova? She honestly could have been a Salvatore just looking at her. The green eyes Stefan shared with his father, the black hair Damon shared with their mother. On top of that she was just as kind hearted as his mother had been in her life. The delicate features, warm smile, bright eyes… she could have easily been their sister in another life. And Stefan loathed her for it. He was finally overcoming his grief over the loss of his mother and then Nova had to go and show up. It was no wonder Giuseppe took pity on her when she looked remotely similar to his dead wife.

"You do not belong here," Stefan told her again. "Not in this family, not even in this town!"

Nova bit her lip trying to keep the tears from spilling. "Du-te dracului, Stefan." (Screw you, Stefan.) She told him through grit teeth before running out of the office and back upstairs.

Stefan followed moments after her, catching her as she was exiting her bedroom with the crystal bottle. He knew Damon and his father would be back anytime; he couldn't allow her to her to give Damon the stupid bottle. They argued more at the top of the stairs where he tried to take the bottle from her hands. She cursed at him in her native tongue as she fought against him just trying to kill enough time for Damon and Giuseppe to walk in. Stefan knew just by the way it felt when he grabbed the bottle one more time what was about to happen. He watched Nova's foot slip over the top of the first step and her emerald eyes widen with fear. In a last ditch effort and decision, Stefan let go of the crystal bottle which caused the ravenette to fall backwards down the stairs. His green eyes witnessed her hit each step until she landed on the floor with the brandy bottle in smithereens.