I watched as Elena picked up a framed photo of us and Jeremy, the glass broken. Her expression was utterly detached as she touched the glass making a piece fall to the floor, shattering.
I looked down at my phone the next morning and sighed at Stefan's name.
"Yes?" I answered.
"Hey, you should get to your old house." He told me and I rolled my eyes.
"And why's that?" I asked him.
"Jeremy died." He told me and I sat up in bed.
"What?" I asked him shocked.
"Katherine was on the island and fed Jeremy to Silas and made off with the cure." He told me. I got out of my bed and quickly went to the closet.
"I'll be right there." I told him. When I was dressed I grabbed Nikolas and went downstairs to see Nik painting. "I need you to watch Nikolas." I told him.
"Where are you going?" he asked before finally looking up. "Nicole, what's wrong?"
"Katherine killed Jeremy." I said and he took Nikolas from me.
"Are you going to be alright?" he asked me.
"I don't know. All I know is I have to go." I told him. He nodded and gave me a quick kiss before I ran out to my car. I drove to my childhood home and walked inside up to Jeremy's room to see Elena sitting with him, smoothing her hand over his face and holding his hands. "Elena?" I called to her.
"Nikky." She looked at me before following my gaze to our brother. "No it's okay. He has his ring, he'll be okay."
"He…" I said before I had to leave the room for the kitchen downstairs. Caroline was dumping a bucket of water into the sink and they both turned to me.
"How long has she been like that?" Caroline asked Stefan taking both their eyes off me.
"Ever since we found his body. She hasn't said anything except that she's waiting for him to wake up." He told her.
"But he's not going to wake up. She knows that, right?" Caroline asked him. I watched Stefan hold a finger up to his lips to silence her before walking over to the sink and running the tap to cover the conversation.
"Look. Deep down, I think she has to, but we're talking about Elena here. She feels grief more powerfully than anyone else. I think her denial is the one thing protecting her from letting it all in." Stefan explained to us.
"But she can't stay like that forever." Caroline said.
"I know, but I don't want to be the one to break her out of it, not until we know that Bonnie is safe, not until we get Damon over here to, you know—" Stefan started saying.
"Use the sire bond to convince her that everything is okay?" Caroline asked and he nodded.
"You think that'll really work?" I asked them. "Our little brother is dead, Stefan. No amount of Sire bonding could make that okay."
"And I'm not in denial." Elena said revealing the fact that she was in the room with us making Stefan turn off the tap. "I know that he was supernatural, but did you see? His tattoo is gone. The tattoo had the spell that opened Silas' chamber. Maybe it being gone means that he's fulfilled his supernatural destiny. Maybe he's back to normal. It's possible, right?" she begged us.
"Elena—" I started saying to her, but she didn't let me say anything more.
"It's possible, Nicole. There's a chance. It may be miniscule, but it's hope and I'm gonna hold on to that hope with everything that I've got because there's no way that J—" she paused in her words. "There's absolutely no way that Jeremy is dead." She nodded before shaking her head at us. "I'm not in denial." She then turned and left the kitchen making the three of us share a look before I followed her and sat by my siblings' side. Eventually, Elena moved to her room before coming back with her journal. I looked up in time to see Meredith in the doorway.
"Elena? Nicole?" she said announcing her presence and I nodded to her.
"Meredith? What are you doing here?" Elena asked her.
"I came to check on your brother. May I?" she asked and Elena nodded.
"Yeah. Um..." Meredith walked over to Jeremy's body and lifted his arm. "You're not gonna find any vitals. It's the same thing that Ric used to go through. He'd just be dead until then he wasn't. Once, I remember he was gone for almost an entire day." Elena said starting to ramble. "Ric died, like, 4 times before he lost his mind and Jeremy has died a few times, too- 3, I think- so we're gonna have to-so we'll have to keep an eye on him because I don't want him to go crazy just like Ric did." Meredith glanced up at Stefan and myself.
"Elena... it looks like Jeremy died of extreme blood loss. His neck also appears to be broken. The lack of blood explains why there's no lividity, but his muscles have tightened past the point of rigor mortis." Meredith explained to her.
"No." Elena denied.
"If he's left unattended to, soon he'll start to bloat. Within a few hours, his skin will discolor, and—" Meredith told us and I turned away from Jeremy's body and Stefan wrapped his arm around my shoulders for comfort.
"No. He's- Stop, okay?" Elena ordered as she walked over to the bed. "Just stop. He's not dead."
"Yes he is, Elena." I said turning to her. "What do we need to do?"
"I need you to release the body to me. We'll get him to a funeral home and prepare him for a viewing where the two of you and his friends can say goodbye to him." She told me, but before I could say anything Elena rushed at her and slammed her against the wall.
"He's not dead, okay?" Elena said and Stefan hurried over to pull her off of Meredith.
"Elena, stop it." Stefan told her.
"Now you're all about science? Where was your science when you used vampire blood to save my life, huh? There is no science here. It's just magic. We need magic. We have to find Bonnie. Bonnie can fix this. Somebody just get me Bonnie!" she said, her voice quickly changing to hysteria.
"Elena—" we all turned to see Matt standing in the doorway. He looked at Jeremy on his bed and Elena followed his gaze as his face started to crumple making the tears I was holding back come out full force.
"No. No. No, Matt. It's fine." Elena told him walking to the teen. "It's okay. It's okay." She hugged him tightly as her eyes teared up. "Bonnie will be here soon, and she'll fix everything, and it'll be all fine. Everything's gonna be fine." She whispered, nodding to herself. "It'll be fine. It'll be fine." Matt walked her downstairs as I sobbed in Stefan's arms.
"You going to be okay?" he asked me quietly.
"My brother is dead and my sister is in denial." I said once I finally calmed down a little. I watched Meredith pull a blanket over Jeremy's face and Stefan pulled me out of the room. Meredith soon followed us and adjusted the thermostat.
"I'm bumping the A/C. We're not gonna be able to leave him in there for much longer." Meredith explained.
"Yeah, I know." Stefan said sitting down on the top step. "I've been alive for almost two centuries now. You'd think with the amount of people that I've seen die, it would hurt less each time. Never does."
"No. No, it never does." Meredith said sitting next to him. "I see this every day. Sometimes I think that denial is the worst part for people like us, because we know the truth. We can see they're on a collision course with it, and all we can do is brace ourselves for impact." Stefan nodded at his phone ring.
"Did you find her?" he answered. "She's losing it, Damon. We can do what we can to delay things here, but we've got to get Jeremy to the morgue before it gets ugly." Stefan explained to his brother. "I think you have to. At this point, the sire bond is probably the only thing that's gonna keep Elena together. I can go back to find Bonnie." Stefan hung up the phone before calling Caroline and telling her that Damon found Bonnie.
Bonnie and Damon didn't arrive until full dark. My phone was full of texts and calls from Nik during the day. Bonnie sat us all down at the table and explained to us that she still had something she had to do before she could bring Jeremy back to life.
"It's called an Expression triangle. I need to complete it for Silas." Bonnie told us.
"What?" Matt asked in disbelief. "Bonnie, you can't kill 12 people."
"I know it sounds crazy, but it's the only way to get enough power." She told us.
"To do what?" Caroline asked her.
"To drop the veil to the Other Side." Bonnie explained. "Once the veil is dropped, the Other Side doesn't exist anymore. There's nothing separating us. We're all just one."
"Bonnie, you are talking like a crazy person. You are not killing 12 people, and you sure as hell can't invite every monster who has ever died back into this world." Caroline told her.
"Caroline, I think she knows that." Matt said.
"Doesn't sound like she does." I told him.
"I can do it. I have the power. We can bring everyone back- Jeremy, Alaric, Jenna, Vicki." Bonnie listed off to us.
"Bonnie, stop it. You can't just say these things." Caroline told her.
"We all want them back but there's people over there I'd like to keep over there." I told her.
"It's gonna be fine..." Bonnie said before the phone rang ending the conversation.
"I'll get it." Elena said.
"Elena, I'll get it—" Matt offered.
"I said I'll get it." She said getting up to answering the phone as the Salvatore brothers came back inside. "Hello? Jeremy can't come to the phone right now. He's not—" she paused. "I'm sorry. He's dead." She hung up the phone and walked out of the room while we all shared a look. I followed her upstairs to Jeremy's room, where his body was laying under a blanket. I watched her approach the bed, and reach to lift the blanket from over his face with a trembling hand. Upon seeing his face, she backed away, breathing heavily.
"Elena..." Damon said from behind me.
"He's dead. He's dead. Damon, he's dead, and he's been dead this entire time, and I—" her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, my god." She turned to Jeremy. "I can smell him." She said turning back to us. "How long has he smelled like that?"
"A while." I told her.
"Hey, talk to me. I can help you." Damon told her.
"How? How are you gonna help me? How?" she sniffled and wiped her hand over her face. "Okay. Okay. We- we have to- we have to take care of his body. Bring him downstairs."
"We shouldn't-" Damon tried telling her but she wasn't listening.
"Just carry him down, please." She told him before leaving the room, bumping my shoulder on her way out. "Where's Bonnie?" Elena asked Stefan.
"We told Matt to take her home. We thought it'd be best." Stefan told her.
"Okay. I guess we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way." she said and I looked worriedly at Stefan.
"Do what?" Caroline asked her.
"Put his body on the couch." She told Damon as he came downstairs with Jeremy in his arms. She went to the kitchen and started opening and closing the cabinets.
"Elena? Elena, you need help finding something?" Caroline asked her. Elena stood up with a bottle of lighter fluid as she started squirted it over the counter.
"Got it." She told us.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked her as she continued to squirt the fluid everywhere.
"We need a cover story, right? You think I didn't hear you guys talking earlier? Well, what are we gonna say- animal attack, 'tumbled down the stairs'? No. We burn the house down with him inside of it." She said before moving to the living room and squirting the couch.
"Elena, stop it." Stefan told her.
"Why? Because you want me to not be in denial? You want me to face the truth? This is the truth, Stefan. I don't want to live here anymore. I don't want these sketches." She sprayed them with the lighter fluid and kicked something as he moved. "I don't want this Xbox." She threw down the empty bottle and reached into the cabinet. "Not gonna need this bourbon anymore. Alaric's not here to drink it, I mean, unless you guys are willing to bring back every supernatural creature on the Other Side to get him back." She said turning to Damon. "Would you? I know you want your drinking buddy back. Would you, Damon? Because I wouldn't." she then walked over to Jeremy's body and splashed bourbon over him. "I don't know, I mean, does that make me a bad person? I- I have no idea." She pulled the Gilbert ring off Jeremy's finger and tossed it to Damon. "He's not gonna need that anymore."
"Elena! That's enough!" I shouted at her. "You're not the only one who lost a brother today!"
"No, but I'm the only one who cared about him like family." She told me and I looked at her shocked.
"Elena, stop it. You're scaring me!" Caroline shouted at her as a fresh wave of tears made their way down my face. After all my sister and I had been through I thought there was no way she could hurt me. Guess I was wrong. I watched Elena take down a picture from the fireplace mantle.
"What else are we supposed to do with the body, Caroline? I mean, there's no- there's no room in the Gilbert family plot." Elena said throwing the frame down on the floor making the glass crack. "Jenna and- and John took the last spots." She threw the empty bottle of bourbon against the wall and it shattered, then grabbed a match from the mantle and lit it.
"No, no, Elena. Stop." Stefan begged her.
"There's nothing here for me anymore, Stefan." She shouted at him. "Every inch of this house is filled with memories of the people that I love that have died- my mom, my dad, Jeremy, and Jenna and Alaric, John, even John. I mean, they're all dead. Everyone is dead. So what am I supposed to- I mean, how am I gonna- I can't even- There's nothing left for me- aah!" the flame had burned down the match and started to burn her hand making her drop the match. Damon used his vampire speed to catch the match before it could ignite the lighter fluid and alcohol everywhere. Elena continued to sob and started to crumble.
"Elena, I need you to calm down." Damon told her.
"No, no, no, I can't. I can't. I can't. I—" she fell to her knees, grabbing her head. "No. It hurts. It hurts. Just make it stop. Please make it stop. It hurts." She sobbed loudly.
"Damon... Help her." Stefan told his brother. Damon crouched next to her and pulled her to him.
"I- I—" she said continuing to cry.
"I can help you. I want you to let me help you." Damon told her as he caressed her face making her shudder. She sat up, pulling away from Damon as he gently continued to caress her cheeks and smooth her hair back. "I can help you."
"How?" she asked him.
"Turn it off." He told her and I looked at him shocked.
"What? No, no." Stefan said but Damon held up a hand to stop him from intervening.
"Just turn it off, and everything will go away. That's what you have to do. It's what I want you to do. Just turn it off." We watched as Elena's tear-stained face turned utterly expressionless and still, the light leaving her eyes.
"What have you done?" I asked him quietly.
I watched as Elena picked up a framed photo of us and Jeremy, the glass broken. Her expression was utterly detached as she touched the glass making a piece fall to the floor, shattering. I looked outside to see Stefan and Damon talking outside. I turned back to Elena and watched her cross the living room to grab and light another match.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"We still need a cover." She told me.
"Elena, don't do this. We can find another cover story." Damon said.
"This is the best one. No one'll ask questions." She said shaking her head.
"Look, if you burn down the house, it'll be gone. What if one day when this is all over, you want to come home again?" Stefan asked her. She watched the flame for a moment before looking up at Stefan.
"I won't." she tipped the match out of her fingers and the floor immediately ignited. I watched shocked as everything began to ignite. Stefan pulled me with him as the four of us walked out of the house. I turned and watched as the living room went up in flames. Jeremy's sketches, his xbox, him…
"Stefan." I said softly knowing he'd hear me.
"Yea?" he asked.
"Can you take me home? I don't think I should drive right now." I told him. He looked back at the house and nodded before escorting me to my car. He drove me home and I immediately went inside and found Nik putt Nikolas in bed. "Nik." I said softly. He looked up at me and walked to me. "He's gone. My baby brother's dead." I said releasing the tears I'd been holding back most the day. He held me in his arms as I sobbed myself to sleep.
