Sorry my schedule has been slipping a bit; I've been busy with a lot of different things, including rewatching TVD for "research." I've clearly been enjoying S5 recently, which will probably come through in this chapter. I hope my habit of rewriting moments in the show isn't annoying or anything (and once again many thanks to anyone who helps transcribe the episodes on the wiki).

Also (although just the knowledge that anyone other than me is reading this is enough for me to keep going), if you feel so inclined, please leave a review or send me a message if you are enjoying the story. I can't tell you how much it means to me. I know as a sequel to a fic that was already about a pretty obscure ship isn't a reader magnet, but you know, validation and all that jazz. At the end of the day I love you all, even the silent ones.

Soundtrack:
Grog Organ – "Night of the Big Wind" from Fur Clemt
R.E.M. – "Radio Free Europe" from Murmur
De La Soul – "The Magic Number" from 3 Feet High and Rising (not on streaming 😭)
Arctic Monkeys – "The Jeweller's Hands" from

Reminder: search fic title on Apple Music or Spotify to find full playlist


The wind in Mystic Falls has always seemed to have a mind of its own (even aside from all the magical wind whipped up by the town's countless witch inhabitants throughout history). Here, "windchecks" are just as if not more common than rainchecks; here, the wind takes what it needs and gives what it wants, humanity be damned.

On this day in late spring, after a whole first half of balmy stillness outside the doors and windows, the air has suddenly begun to move more quickly, flattening the grass of the yard and rustling the tree branches. Bonnie doesn't notice at first, because she's passed out on the couch in the middle of a long-overdue evening nap, exhausted from the intensive psychic extraction spell they just spent the last few hours using on Nora, so tired she's not even dreaming. So when she starts to fly she doesn't notice either, only realizing what's happening when she's suddenly hundreds of feet above the house she was just asleep in, even that huge building quickly slipping from sight as she drifts higher, farther, the glittering lights of large towns and cities in the subtle darkness of early dusk flitting by below at dizzying speed, and then she's over the coastline, the inky roiling waters of the Atlantic yawning beneath her as she accelerates eastward. Even from her impossible altitude Bonnie swears she can see sea creatures breaching the surface, barely dots on a gargantuan canvas of blue, whales and dolphins and—

Are those...?


Back in Mystic Falls, the wind continues to swirl around the Salvatore house like a too-tentative tornado, whirling just quickly enough to make its presence known with branches clacking against windows, shutters banging, ghostly whispers through the flue. Stefan sits about ten feet from Bonnie's sleeping form, slumped in his favorite chair and reading the same line over and over, his thoughts as scattered as the trembling leftover flames in the fireplace. He finally snaps the battered copy of Ellison's Invisible Man shut in defeat and tosses it onto the coffee table. How is one supposed to enjoy their leisurely private reading time when they've just learned that their dead ex-turned-mortal-enemy-turned-kind-of-friend-turned-enemy-again may not only be alive, but also involved in an apocalyptic plot to snuff out all of space and time?

Stefan scowls to no one at the sheer absurdity of his life and rubs his eyes, the premature darkness outside suddenly making him drowsy despite it not even being five yet. He sighs, pours himself a few fingers of bourbon. It had already been a hell of a day without the outlandish Twilight Zone twist. He always has a blast with the twins, but at the same time it never fails to remind him that he'll always just be their uncle, that he'll never have actual kids of his own. It's been something he's wanted yet known he can never have for as long as he can remember, but with Valerie telling him what happened with Julian and then Caroline having the girls, it's been especially impossible to ignore these past few years.

But Stefan smiles as he takes a drink of amber liquor, because he remembers how much fun cooking with the twins earlier was, Lizzie hanging around his neck like a capuchin, Josie stirring the chowder with a slightly concerning fervor. Being an uncle can be enough for now. Who knows, maybe someday—

The already paltry fire in the hearth goes out with a whoosh, and it's only now that Stefan realizes it was the only light source in the room— or was it? He could swear he'd left the dining room light on. But now everything is the same drawn, somber grey as it is outside, like all the life has suddenly been drained out. He looks over at Bonnie. She's barely moved from the position she was in last time he checked, ostensibly oblivious to the creepiness setting in around them.

He's already so tense that when he turns his head back to the windows and sees a flash Katherine's ghostly form through the glass, it barely even startles him.


On another long-past evening, not unlike this one, the wind is blowing and buffeting with the same portentous fervor, the noise and force of it much more noticeable at the top of the clock tower, and Katherine is barely keeping her balance as her weak human frame is knocked this way and that. Clinging to the wrought-iron minute hand with her arms and the tiny ledge with her heeled feet, life feels as precious as it ever has.

But then the air calms and quiets a bit, and she's forced to think back to everything that's been happening to her over the past few weeks—everything ON TOP OF the fact that she now has to face the indignity of mortal, non-supernatural existence every goddamn day—the grey hairs, the tooth loss, the constant aches and coughs and splitting migraines... she's dying. And Katerina Petrova doesn't die, not in the ongoing sense at least, she lives, loud and proud. But just like she wrote in the letter to Nadia, time is her final enemy, one she cannot defeat on her usual terms. So fuck all of this accelerated aging nonsense. Fuck time. Fuck redemption. Fuck going gently. She's leaving on her own terms and no one can say otherwise.

She doesn't jump, but falls, backward, arms outstretched, without fear, without shame. This single second of descent isn't even a blip in the 500+ years she's been alive, and yet it looms larger than most others, because this is the only second out of the other seventeen billion in which she's about to die by her own hand—permanently, that is.

But what Katherine sees when she opens her eyes isn't the Other Side, or heaven, or hell, or whatever even more horrific fate lies beyond. It's the same star-dotted night sky she'd seen before she closed her eyes. But now she feels pain, the pain of being alive, the very thing she wanted so desperately to escape. And she also sees another's face, staring at hers. But then again, if she were to see any face directly after she was supposed to be dead, it might as well be his.

"What are you doing?" Stefan asks, his tone both bewildered and... betrayed?

Katherine shrugs out of his arms, wincing as her vertebrae snap back into place. "I told you. You either face your problems, or you run. I chose option three."

Stefan's does what it does best: furrows. "...and what problem has you jumping off a clock tower?"

She grimaces and grits her teeth. Admitting this makes her weak. This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. And yet... if she can trust anyone, it's him. "I'm dying, Stefan. I'm dying of old age." She scowls in embarrassed disbelief. "I don't know. The cure did something to speed up the entire, mortifying process."

"Hey." He brings his hand up and lightly strokes her cheek, and for a moment she could swear he's about to say something nice. But they both know better. "You're Katherine Pierce. Suck it up."


Back in the present—this present, at least—the wind persists, darting through alleys and back roads and whooshing through the very same town square where Stefan and Katherine, and so, so many others, had had their moment. And even amidst the early-onset evening gloom, the Grill's lights still glow with defiance.

"Tell me this, though. When you chose Damon it had to have been in your mind that things wouldn't be perfect. He's come a long way. Further than even I ever could have thought. But he'll never stop protecting you, no matter what. It's just who he is." Ric sips his bourbon. "He's told me on multiple occasions, and I quote verbatim, 'All I want is to make sure she gets the life she deserves.' My response was, of course, good motives do not a good man make, but when has that message ever stuck in his thick head?"

Elena sighs. "But that's just it, Ric. The 'life I deserve' is one in which I make my own decisions. Mortal or not." She pauses, then: "Stefan understood that."

Ric pauses mid-drink and looks at her, eyebrows raised. "I was under the impression you were at a place in your relationship with Damon where you don't mention Stefan like he's the cooler parent in the divorce."

"You're right, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Elena takes a swig of her cocktail. "Fuck, I don't even know why this stuff with the twins has me so worked up. I mean, I endured months of micromanagement when I did so much as reach for a plate in the kitchen. And Damon's right; neither of the girls would ever mean to hurt me, but they could, and that would be it."

"Sure, maybe. Or maybe not. That's just the endemic uncertainty of human existence. Something a lot of our immortal friends have forgotten." Ric looks at her. "How long has Damon been dodging talking about the Cure?"

Elena shoots him that good-natured glare he earns whenever he's exactly right about something he has no right to be right about. "Since the day I woke up."

"I figured as much. Surprised he hasn't ranted to me about it. But then again—" Ric pauses to finish his drink. "—that tells us something too. He's probably not nearly as scared of taking the Cure as he is of what comes after."

"What do you mean?"

"I assume amidst all of the hints you're dropping about the Cure, you're probably not exactly avoiding talk about kids and shit, right?"

Elena takes a deep breath of realization. "Of course. I should've known."

Ric puts his hand on hers on the bar. "No, you shouldn't have. In a perfect world, he should have just told you. But coming from another recovering asshole who had an abusive scumbag for a father, whatever good sense we do have goes flying out the window when it comes to that fucker, or, especially, when it comes to potentially becoming like him."

"Shit, Ric... thank you." Elena hugs him. "That's so helpful, you have no idea."

"Being an increasingly involved wingman for my knucklehead best friend is a lifelong commitment."

"Okay, your turn now. You gotta tell me all about this magical mystery woman you met in the most romantic of liminal spaces."

She signals the bartender for a refill as Ric laughs. "That's what you want to talk about? Not the fact that the dive into Nora's head revealed that your psychotic doppelganger may or may not have crawled from the depths of hell?"

Elena squints at him. "You hear the words coming out of your mouth, and you see why that's the last thing I want to talk about, right?"

Ric chuckles. "Alright, fair, fair. But listen, we do need to consider getting you somewhere safe. If Katherine is involved, no one's a more likely target than you."
She sighs. "Well I just have two more finals on Monday and then I'm done with the semester, so it's good timing, I guess, as far as this stupid town's neverending parade of inconvenient resurrections goes."

The music's been quiet and they can both hear the wind howling outside, even above the light early evening crowd scattered throughout the dining room. But then the unmistakable drum hits of "Radio Free Europe" ring out and Elena is immediately in a better mood. "See? Even the radio wants us to keep it light. Come on, Ric! I'm so excited for you. I haven't seen you that smitten with someone in... too long."

Ric smiles despite himself; he should be keeping this much more lowkey, already kind of regrets telling everyone at the mansion earlier, considering his luck in the romance department. But he can't help it. "Yeah, me neither."

"So? Can I at least get a name?"

"It's one you won't soon forget, I'll say that: Seline."


Damon raises his eyebrows as yet another heavyweight gust bodyslams the Camaro, not enough to get it to veer off course but still noticeable to everyone in the car. "Christ," he remarks nonchalantly. "Are we getting the aftershocks of some tropical storm further south or some shit?"

"Maybe the apocalypse has finally arrived," Valerie deadpans from the passenger seat.

"The apocalypse has been here, Val. It's just a hell of a lot slower and ten hells of a lot more confusing than we thought it'd be."

"Regardless, thanks for the ride, Damon." Nora's voice sounds more than a little dazed; she's the most exhausted of all of them, unsurprisingly.

He shoots a quick look of bewilderment back at her. "Hildegard, after everything you've been through, I will chauffeur your zombified ass across the entire post-armageddon wasteland in this very vehicle, no questions asked. I'll even let you pick the music—once in a while. Yeah no, scratch that actually."

"I've lived in the post–wax cylinder world for a mere fraction of the time you have, and yet I already have much better taste." How sleepy Nora is makes the needle even sharper. "But if you need this to convince yourself otherwise, sure, I'll be a nice quiet passenger."

"You know how they say to not look a gift horse in the mouth?" Damon says, his narrowed eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror. "I'd wager one can extrapolate that to 'don't look an apocalypse getaway driver with a truly majestic ride in the mouth.' "

Beau, sitting to the right of Nora in the backseat, signs something only she can see.

"You traitor!"

More signs.

"Fine, you didn't have to play the 'translation is sacred' card." Nora scrunches up her face. "Beau says you have better taste in hip-hop than me."

"HA! C'est vrai, Brute," Damon replies, reaching back for a fist bump from Beau. "The truth comes out."

Nora smiles and shakes her head. "But admit it, you'll never best me when it comes to K-pop."

"That implies I would want to." He smirks and drives in silence for a few seconds, the upward curve slowly dropping out of his lips, and then he says, "I hate to ruin our adorable little banter exchange, but to be perfectly honest, the still very recent news of my dearly departed ex slash nemesis possibly being not so dearly departed is weighing on my mind, to say the least. So, Hildegard, I have to ask, do you remember anything else? Anything get shaken out of the kelp floor of your subconscious?"

"You get a pass on the ruining for your poetry. And no, nothing. I've barely heard of Katherine before today, let alone met her. I know she looks exactly like Elena, but that doesn't trigger anything in my memories at all. If I remember anything more, I will absolutely tell you right away, because I know how dangerous she is."

Damon meets Nora's eyes in the mirror again. "Noted. Thanks."

"I can say one thing, though," she continues hesitantly. "As someone who's been to Hell and is now... elsewhere, I can't explain it, but I feel in my gut that the gates are still closed."

"What kinda Old Testament shit is that?"

Nora looks at her feet. "What happened to me, what happened to Bonnie too, sort of, we just passed through. You can enter and leave but you can't enter, and then leave, if that makes sense. Otherwise Cade himself would already be here wreaking havoc or whatever he has planned. He's burning forever just like the rest of them, and he's been there the longest... no one's more desperate to escape than him."

"Like you said," Damon says with a smirk, "you've never met Katherine."

There's a few seconds of silence as the song that was just playing fades to a close, but then the bright vinyl-dusted opening notes of De La Soul's "The Magic Number" punch through, and the "something evil this way comes" mood suddenly becomes a lot less oppressive.

Damon grins. "See, the end of the world may be on its way, but as long as I can cruise in my blue baby with the jams on the radio, everything will be just fine."

Almost as soon as he says this, the radio cuts off, and so do the Camaro's headlights, plunging the four of them into near-complete darkness.

"Well that's not a good sign," Damon remarks, and it's the last thing any of them say before the impact hits the passenger side and the car is flipping end over end.


They call Chicago the Windy City, but anyone who's ever been in Manhattan or Long Island City on a rather blustery day can attest that New York's gridded blocks and long, skyscraper-edged streets can doubly function as a network of brutal wind tunnels.

Tonight isn't the "cold November wind" of Ann Petry's iconic opening to The Street. No, tonight it's much milder, carrying with it the residual warmth of summer that tends to hide itself away in the corners come September, and during the lulls it's barely more than a breeze that gently carries away the smoke curling from between Bonnie's lips as she leans over the railing of the rooftop patio, watching the clusters of people pass by below.

"So it might be a sore subject," she says to Damon as she passes him the joint, "but is this not the same dive-y punk bar where you not only left Lexi stranded in the sun, but also were subsequently left stranded yourself by Elena?"

"Now Bon, why would the two events that humiliatingly represent the deepest depths of my pettiness and my naïveté, respectively, be a sore subject?"

"Um, how have neither of you told me these stories?" Nora interjects.

Bonnie shakes her head. "Oh, I have. It probably just got buried under all the other crazy shit that happened during our search for the Cure."

Nora's eyes widen in recognition as she makes the connection. "Wait, like Lexi Lexi?"

"The very same," Damon replies flatly.

"The one you killed?"

"I say again, I can't imagine why these would be sore subjects, guys? Keep it up, why not?"

"Oh shut up, you big baby." Bonnie snatches the joint out of his mouth and hands it to Nora; he blows smoke in her face in retaliation. "Uncomfortable reminders are the least you deserve for all you've done." She hesitates, then adds, "Both of you."

Damon just rolls his eyes and smirks as usual, but when she looks to Nora the brunette's expression is unreadable, and then the flash of tears in her eyes isn't, but Bonnie barely has time say "Nora, wait, I didn't mean—" before Nora closes her eyes and shakes her head, mutters "Just give me a minute" and zips over to the roof access door and back into the club.

"Aw, shit," Bonnie says with a sigh, her face dropping and her hands coming up to the back of her head. "I should have known not to bring this up. She's already upset about almost losing control when someone got a papercut in class this week."

" 'Almost'?" Damon takes another drag from the joint that Nora had given back to him, blowing the smoke straight up into the night air this time. "Sounds like a win to me."

"Nothing's a win for her." Bonnie's hands can't stop moving; they go to her front pockets, then the back ones, then her sides, then the railing behind her. "She feels like she has so much to make up for that she'll never be able to."

"What a shame you don't know anyone else who might know what that's like. If you did, you could maybe ask him for advice, but alas..."

She rolls her eyes at him. "I have asked you for advice; you just didn't realize what I was really asking. And you two are so different. More than you'll ever know."

"Clearly. No arguments here. But one thing I do know is that when you're really with someone, you have to be able to talk about everything. Everything. There was a huge, insurmountable wall inside me that I didn't even know was there before I told Elena about Augustine, the Whitmores, Gail..." He scratches his head and looks away. "You can't ignore it. And she has to own it. That's just how it is."
Bonnie nods slowly, not fully sure what to say. Her eyes drift to the closed access door. "It's been a minute by now, right?"

"Sure. Hell, I don't know why you didn't run after her right away."

"Me neith—" Bonnie stops, closes her mouth, furrows her brow. "Wait. Hold on. I remember this night. I remember what happened. I did run after her. We made up and kissed and then danced for hours."

Damon looks at her quizzically. "This weed isn't that good, Bon."

"Hold on..." She slowly walks toward the door, tentative as she reaches for the metal handle, suddenly terrified about what waits for her beyond.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," she hears Damon call from behind her. "I'm not sure you'll like what you find."

"What are you—?" Bonnie asks as she whirls around, but he's no longer there; no one is. She's alone. And not just on the roof. The city that never sleeps has gone silent. There's nothing left to do but open the door. But before she can, something smashes against it from the other side. She steps back, her heart pounding, her heavy breathing the only sound in this fucked-up vacuum. There's another smash, and then another, and then the door swings open, and—


"Bonnie! Bonnie, hey, wake up! You're dreaming!"

Her eyes snap open to see Stefan's face above hers, his own brown irises filled with worry.

"What's going on?" she says, sitting up too fast, rubbing her face as she tries to iron whatever the hell just happened out of her brain.

"Well for one, just a second ago you were screaming and thrashing around like you were being dream-murdered. Figured I should step in. You know, hero hair and all."

"Thanks." Bonnie opens her mouth to tell him what her nightmare actually entailed, but the necessary words scurry away like roaches at the flick of a light switch. "Wait, what do you mean 'for one'?"

"Something's happening. Something bad. And I think it has something to do with you-know-who."

"What? How do you know?"

Stefan scratches the back of his neck nervously. "I kind of... saw her. Outside. I think. I mean, something has to be going on with all this wind, right? Remember how windy it was when the veil dropped the night before graduation?"

"You're asking me if I remember the night I died the first time?" she replies with raised eyebrows. "And anyway, that was the Other Side. What we're dealing with now is whatever the Other Side was obstructing. None of the same rules apply. And you're sure you saw Katherine? Not Elena?"

He nods. "Whether I was hallucinating or not, it was definitely her. And Elena's at the Grill with Ric right now. They're fine, and Caroline's with the kids, but I can't get ahold of Damon or any of the heretics at all, and I'm starting to get worried."

"Okay, give me a minute, I'll do a locator spell." She stands up from the couch and yawns, shaking her head a few times to rid her skull of the last few cobwebs of sleepiness. "I should've known letting myself get some rest for once wouldn't end well."

Stefan strides over to the throne and opens the seat, squinting at whatever is or isn't inside and then closes it again. "Do you know where all the weapons are?"

Bonnie looks up from setting up her map and candles. "Oh yeah, Caroline did some childproofing. Explosives in the basement, stakes in the game room, crossbows in the... library? Don't quote me on that."

"Why, I'd never." Stefan starts to walk even more quickly back toward Bonnie, clearly aiming to breeze past her and descend the cellar stairs, but she steps into his way before he can pass. He stops, tries—and, as usual, fails—to appear nonchalant as she looks at him suspiciously.

"What has you so convinced we need to stock up on weapons? What am I missing here?"

"You did hear what I said about seeing Katherine's ghost, right? I'm just ensuring we're ready for anything. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what happened last time we just took it for granted that she was dead."

Bonnie cringes at the memory. How Elena ever forgave them for that, she doesn't know. "Oof. Nice try. But I don't believe you. What's really going on?"

He only gets the first few syllables of a reply out before the front door swings open with a bang. While they've been talking the sky has darkened from grey to black and the wind has been joined by a brutal storm. Even with the warm lighting of the mansion's first floor it's impossible to see who or what is about to join them, but as if on cue a flash of lightning so close it makes every hair on Bonnie's body stand on end does the job, briefly illuminating a shapely silhouette that finally steps into the light as the corresponding crack of thunder rattles the bones of both house and housed. Bonnie doesn't recognize the face at first, but it doesn't take her mind long to make the leap, and she instantly goes into attack mode, summoning a blue fireball in her right hand, one that won't burn wood, only flesh. "Stefan. It's Sybil."

The Siren cocks her head to the side and smiles playfully. "Bonnie Sheila Bennett." She says each name likes it's its own sentence. "It's such a pleasure to finally meet you, in the flesh." She takes a small but threatening step forward, her six-inch heel rapping smartly against the wood floor, audible even amidst the sound of the pouring rain. "Maybe the weapons weren't such a crazy idea?"