A/N: Hello and enjoy.

They were shades moving through the trees, footsteps carefully placed on the ground without snapping a single twig. Armed with crowbars and jaws tight with grim determination, they were feet from either exposing a hard truth or making fools of themselves. Finding out their father had sired an illegitimate child to continue the Salvatore bloodline hadn't been shocking, was actually expected. Yet learning the possibility their mother might be alive, that particular pill was harder to swallow.

The roof of the crypt came into view. Damon quickened his steps. Light was minimal but they didn't need it. The smell of wet earth and foliage saturated the air, but underneath that was the cloying acridity of decay, bare bones, rotted clothing from decades past.

The two brothers entered the crypt, feet shuffling against the stained concrete. Together they approached the plaque where their mother's remains were interred.

With an imperceptible nod, Damon shuffled to one side of Lillian Salvatore's plot, Stefan to the other.

Two minutes later they were pulling out her coffin amid plumes of dust and dirt. Neither moved to start the daunting task of prying the lid off the top. They just stood there and stared being inundated with memories of the woman who birthed them, gave comfort when the mood suited her and, in Damon's case, disciplined in her own creative way. He remembered every detail of his human life, but one thing he forgot was the sound of his mother's voice. Her laughter was extremely rare, but the cadence of her voice was lost to him, but he could…he could almost hear it now.

He was spooked out of his musings when he heard the wood groaning at the force of Stefan wedging the crowbar between the lid and bottom. "What are you doing?"

Stefan shot him an incredulous look. "What the hell do you mean 'what are you doing?' This is your stupid idea, genius."

"Right," Damon muttered lowly and wedged his own crowbar into place.

"Are you having second thoughts about this?"

"No."

"We can leave it."

"We've already gone this far, might as well finish what we started."

"What were you thinking about just now?"

"How I want to get this open, solve this mystery, and go home to bang my girlfriend," Damon snarked.

Stefan smelled that lie. Whenever Damon whipped out the sarcasm it was his way of throwing up emotional roadblocks. Stefan had ten years with their mother whereas Damon had seventeen. Whatever their relationship was like those seven years before he entered the scene, he'd never know, but if Stefan had to guess he'd say that Damon had been closer to their mother, that some kind of bond beyond the usual formed between them. Then again he could be wrong. In any case he stood on the opposite side of the coffin and began to loosen the lid.

With each loosening of a nail, Damon felt pressure in the center of his chest that spread to his eye sockets. He winced. His mouth was overcome with the taste of cotton. There was a dull ache pounding in the back of his skull, and his ears were ringing. If he didn't know any better he would say he was hung over. He coughed and the floor shifted so dramatically that Damon thought he actually fell, but apparently he was still standing. His vision went in and out of focus, and as he looked around, objects were moving. The walls, the floor, the coffin, the windows.

"Damon? You all right?"

Stefan's voice sounded far away like they were separated underground, stuck in two separate tunnels.

He blinked and everything became salient, tranquil.

Get to the border. Get to the border. That was all he heard, a precipitous summons that was as irritating as a leaky faucet. The crowbar in his hands clanged to the ground when he dropped it, did an about face and marched out of the crypt.

"Damon, where the hell are you going?" Stefan went in pursuit of his brother. "Hey," he reached for Damon's arm to yank him back to no avail. He doubled up his efforts when he saw how close they were getting to the border they couldn't cross. "Damon! Snap the fuck out of it!"

Stefan zipped in front of Damon whose eyes were eerily blank, braced his hands on his chest and started to push him back, the balls of his feet digging deep into the ground.

"Don't make me snap your neck because I will," the younger threatened. Stefan gasped and nearly released Damon when he saw the veins under his brother's skin glowing an iridescent shade of blue. He didn't know what the hell was going on, what was happening with his brother, but what Stefan did know was that swift action was needed.

He got behind his brother. "Sorry," he said before snapping Damon's neck.

Sweat dotted Caroline's hairline, the center of her back. Her pits were flooded and her hair was beginning to stick to her flushed cheeks. Frantically she pushed down on her mother's sternum to keep her blood circulating. The stupid machines wouldn't stop blaring and she had no idea what any of the numbers meant, apart from one, her blood pressure. It was dropping. Nothing she was doing was working and not a single doctor or nurse or even orderly was flying into the room to save her mom's life. Somewhere in the back of her mind Caroline could hear other monitors from neighboring rooms going off, heard people groaning in agony, heard a few screams that sounded like someone's nails were being pulled off. She had no idea what the fuck was going on, but knew she needed to act.

The second Caroline made the decision to disconnect Liz from everything to get her out of there, she became short of breath. At first she thought it was shock taking over, but it was worsening like a pillow had been stuffed over her face and behind held down by someone incredibly strong.

The exact way Katherine ended her human life.

"Oh…no…" she wheezed. The charm was failing and she was starting to be affected by the traveler spell. "We're… n-not dying h-here," Caroline promised as she inhaled a massive breath, picked her mom up bridal style and flew out of the hospital with what fleeting vampire speed she had left.

"Who the hell are you?"

"A ghost."

Bonnie seriously didn't have time for this. "I don't know how you got a hold of that necklace…keep it away from me."

"It could help."

"NO!" Bonnie shouted. She couldn't hold a conversation while battling the revenant that had gone absolutely still, a frozen solid mass, gaze planted to the dark sky above.

She was running out of ideas, energy, and time. Not that long ago her body had become flames walking along that deserted highway when she, Stefan, and Enzo searched for Damon. Bonnie had never felt that surge in her natural powers before. It had surpassed what she felt when imbued with the power of a hundred dead witches. Esther told her she had existed in several dimensions at once and it had changed her. What if that change had been a one-time deal? What if she couldn't access it again? What if she had already exhausted that cosmic power that Esther speculated she now possessed?

Bonnie could call on Ezra but she didn't want to keep relying on him, didn't want to turn him into her personal deus ex machina. She had too much experience being one of those. But…she needed help. She was going up against fifteen hundred (or older) years of magic she had little understanding of. Her magic alone couldn't do anything to stop it as it was currently being devoured.

"Since you will not yield," the revenant was saying in that eerily non-talking way, "you will see."

"Wh-?" Bonnie couldn't get the rest of the word out because the road, the entire scene behind the revenant disintegrated and rushed forward like a coming tsunami. The power drained out of Bonnie, slipping out of her control, like trying to hold on to a hot air balloon that's become detached from the basket. She imagined herself having a million fingers and each one grappling to stitch the loose ends together, but those ends were being burned away a string at a time, curling in on itself, paper to a flame.

Determination and will could carry a person from immobile to inert, but there had to be commitment to sustain momentum. The wonders of the world were built with ingenuity and meticulousness. Magic, Bonnie saw it no differently. Words backed by energy siphoned from the inner connectivity of the earth. She reached her will down in the strata of it, clawing away at layers of sedimentary rock, almost licking at the silver core of the earth, wrenching up power in such a flood as to cause a chemical reaction.

No! It was clipped. Seared off the same as sheep's fur. Dammit, this bitch is strong, Bonnie gritted her teeth, curling her fists so hard that her nails punctured the palms of her hands. The struggling witch found herself in a position she avoided. Wanting to give up. Wanting to let the other side win. Giving in could be just as hard as staying the course. How many powerful beings had she gone up against? But you won. A voice whispered. You won.

She lost.

The blast of a gun going off made Bonnie scream. The recoil was sharp, so sharp it flung her backwards. The revenant stood there, shocked, hands cupping the abdomen of its host. Blood seeped between slender fingers. Bonnie stumbled and whipped around, flabbergasted to see Matt with his rifle still aimed, smoke wafting in tendrils from the barrel.

The heat of the spell was gone, beckoning in a rush of ice that rudely reminded Bonnie it was indeed winter and the dead of night. Her own shock was settling in, stiffening her joints, and making her teeth chatter. She ignored it, gaping at Matt as if a horn burst from the center of his forehead. As she gaped, the revenant began speaking lowly in some unknowable language. Blue mist rose from her mouth, her nose, and seemingly from the top of her head.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine. It's her I'm worried about. Why'd you shoot her? You didn't know what was happening."

"I've been around you long enough to know when a spell is in progress…You were losing and I wasn't going to let that happen," Matt tossed his rifle in the bed of his truck, and jogged to the woman bleeding and trembling on the ground. "I'll get her to the hospital. She's been missing for the last few days."

"She's one of the missing person's?"

"Yes. Cherise Tomlinson."

"How are you going to explain the gunshot wound?"

Matt kneeled down, checked Cherise's pulse. "I won't."

"She could identify you as her shooter."

"Has anyone been able to give an accurate account of their alleged actions when they've been possessed?"

That hit Bonnie in the chest because she had fallen into the can't-remember-shit category when she had been under Silas' influence.

"If she does remember…I'll cross that bridge if I need to. You should go."

"Matt…"

"Let me take care of this. All right? Trust me. Go home, Bonnie."

She stubbornly remained where she was, being a spectator as Matt took off his jacket, covering Cherise with it, and lifting her into his arms. She did spring into action to at least help Matt get Cherise settled on the back seat.

"Someone needs to put pressure on the wound," Bonnie grabbed the sides of the door ready to propel herself into the cabin, but Matt's hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"You can't cross into the border."

Oh. Right. Bonnie hated this. Gritting her teeth, she stepped down, but reached for Cherise's hand that was ice-cold. Closing her eyes she whispered a quick healing incantation, felt warmth leave her body and seep into the woman whose body relaxed a fraction. Pleased she'd lessened some of the trauma the bullet caused, Bonnie moved out of the way and stood in the middle of the street as Matt peeled away, tires spinning against the asphalt.

Bonnie realized, belatedly, that the woman who had had Esther's necklace was gone. Before she could question where she went and, more importantly, who she was, her phone vibrated in her pocket. She answered without identifying the caller.

"Caroline?"

"No, it's Stefan. I had to break your boyfriend's neck. I'm at your house."

"What? What the hell is going on now?"

"I…we were in the middle of something when all of a sudden he started heading for the border. It was like he was in a trance; he was completely unresponsive. Since I couldn't get him to stop the traditional way I had to resort to other methods."

"Jesus," Bonnie moaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I had a weird encounter too and more than likely whatever was going on with Damon was connected to what I had been dealing with. I'll be on the way after I meet with Caroline. Oh, wait, she's calling me now. We'll continue this when I get home." She hung up and switched over to the other line. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

Caroline was breathing heavily as if oxygen was a rare commodity and she couldn't get enough of it. Worry doubled within Bonnie who marched to the Camaro and fell behind the wheel.

"Bon…"

"Yeah, what's going on? What's wrong?"

"I…something happened with my mom, with the whole freaking hospital!" Caroline shrieked. "I think she had gone into cardiac arrest and then I was starting to feel the traveler spell…It was killing me so I disconnected my mom from every last one of the machines and rushed us the hell out of the hospital. We're at Whitmore Medical now. She's stable. What happened?"

"When I know more I'll tell you. I'm on my way to you right now."

"All right."

"I love you, Care."

"I love you, too, Bon."

Disconnecting the call, Bonnie turned the key in the ignition, threw the car in Drive, made a 3-point turn and raced toward the hospital to check on her friend. She stayed with Caroline and Liz for about an hour and then hit the road once more to finally head home.

Tiredness crept along Bonnie's spine, a curious spider looking for a discreet corner to build a web. The odd sense of déjà vu joined the party making the trek from the driveway to the front door seem like a triathlon.

Stefan cocked his head at the sound of keys hitting the lock, nose picking up the scent of crisp air, wisteria, and the components that made fire: carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrogen. Bonnie appeared, slipped out of her coat, and made a beeline for the vampire stretched out, unconscious on her couch.

They waited over an hour for Damon to wake up but he didn't so much as twitch.

Bonnie paced a little. "How hard did you snap his neck? He should have woken up by now."

"It was a standard and clean snap."

"What were you two doing tonight?"

Stefan kept his attention steady on his brother, weighing the pros and cons of giving an honest answer. He'd never been good at holding water. He believed in laying your cards on the table at the right time instead of playing everything close to the vest like Damon. And history dictated that the truth would come out and usually at the most inopportune time, so he saw little point in concealing what they had been doing.

"We had gone to our family crypt to see if a hunch Damon had had any validity to it."

"What kind of hunch?"

The younger Salvatore turned his head slowly like an owl towards Bonnie. "He learned that our mother might be alive."

"Are you serious?"

"That's exactly what I said. Our mother died of consumption in 1858. Damon claims he was contacted by a woman going by the name Bathroy Blackwell in 1903, which he learned from Jo, Alaric's girlfriend, is a designation given to someone who oversees a division of supernatural anomalies called the Chthonic Institute. Long story short, Jo thinks that institute contacted Damon to use him as bait to lure our mother out who turns out to be…a ripper."

Bonnie's heart skipped a beat.

Stefan heard it and smiled a little. "Again, our reactions to that news mirrors one another, Bonnie."

"Do you believe it?"

"I don't believe in coincidences. However, where would I have gotten the urge to rip people apart? Rippers are rare among vampires. You wouldn't think so but we are," he cleared his throat. Even after accepting what he was, it was still difficult for Stefan to admit how vicious he could be.

"Did you get the casket open?"

"No. Damon went weird before we could pry the lid off, leaving me no choice but to snap his neck, putting a pause on that misadventure. So I have no idea if bones or nothing at all is in my mother's coffin."

Just then the tiny hairs on the nape of Bonnie's neck rose. An eerie kind of knowing, the kind of sensation she felt anytime her psychic awareness pinged like a sonar wave. "Stef…what did your mother look like?"

He thought for a moment, sifting through a million and one memories hoping to retrieve the one that offered up a vivid and clear picture of Lily Salvatore's face. "She had bright blue eyes…like Damon. Dark hair, very pale skin and she had…freckles. Across her nose and her cheeks." Stefan frowned seeing Bonnie look a little ashen herself. "What's wrong?"

"I…think I may have…"

Damon chose that moment to return to lucidity. Not in a dramatic fashion like it's done on TV shows and in the movies with the unconscious victim gasping and springing forward. Damon's awakening was far subtler. A deep inhalation with a suspended pause before another rise and fall of his chest. His lashes fluttered and slowly his lids went from half-mast to fully open. Bonnie and Stefan hovered above him, standing hip-to-hip. They said nothing as Damon's eyes slid over to them but for a second there was no kind of recognition reflecting back at them. The color of his irises was normal and not the frightening mercury Bonnie had been scared she'd see. She flinched when Damon's corpse-cold hand cupped her cheek. He frowned.

"Your hand is freezing," she explained.

"He needs blood," Stefan made his way to the kitchen to retrieve a couple of packs.

Damon rolled to an upright position, arching his back and stretching his arms above his head. The bones in his spine realigned themselves, popping into place, which felt so good to the vampire he sighed. Bonnie observed from her spot on the coffee table, searching for any signs that a revenant had possessed her boyfriend. So far he appeared to be himself, but appearances were often the most deceiving.

Damon accepted the blood bag from Stefan, popped the top and squeezed. He grimaced at the taste but swallowed anyways. "I know I shouldn't bother with this question, but what happened?"

"You were acting like you were under a trance," his little brother informed, pushing up the sleeves of his Henley. "You were headed for the border and I couldn't get you to stop so I…" Stefan pantomimed snapping a neck.

"The revenants had started a spell to break out of their cell," Bonnie picked up the story. "And since one had physical contact with you, it must have left a kind of residue behind they could summon. I can only assume they needed every kind of energy they could get their hands on to amass enough power."

Damon soaked it all in and polished off the second blood bag. "I'm so sick of this shit. Why here? They couldn't decide to break free in a cooler city? Paris? Rome? New York? Miami?"

"Think about it. The big four died in Mystic Falls. Qetsiyah, my ancestor who created the other side. Silas, the first hybrid. Markos who created the traveler spell and Amara the one cursed to be the anchor. Their spilled blood could be used as a doorway, and yet a key would still be needed to open it. The key being power…and," Bonnie remembered about Caroline and what she described happening to her and the sheriff at the hospital. Yes, now it all made sense and she explained as much to the brothers. "The revenants didn't have enough on their own so they turned to an organic source…people. They started targeting everyone in Mystic Falls."

"Shit," Damon whispered.

"That's crazy," Stefan shook his head.

Damon said, "Did they finish the spell?"

"I'm not sure, but we'll find out eventually."

"Well," Stefan chimed in, "it's never too late to move."

"That is looking…mighty appealing," the fatigued witch mumbled lowly. She brought her tired and bloodshot eyes to Stefan, "Caroline…will you go and check on her? She shouldn't be alone right now."

Befuddled and a bit caught off guard by the request, Stefan blinked. "Ah, yeah, sure. But shouldn't we try to come up with some kind of plan to deal with this immediate threat?"

"I'm too tired to even tie a pair of shoes right now. Forget about trying to hatch a Steven Soderburgh-esque movie plot to deal with the latest freak of the week. Can you please just check on Caroline?" Bonnie implored, stifling a yawn.

"All right. If anything happens…call me."

"Kicking my brother out because you want me all to yourself," Damon teased after Bonnie had locked the door behind Stefan.

She shuffled back into the living room. "That and you need a shower. You smell like blood and dirt."

"Well, you're not a bed of roses yourself."

"You must like that couch because that's where you're gonna end up sleeping for the night."

"A man gets his neck snapped and this is the kind of aftercare he has to look forward to?" he pushed to his feet towering over Bonnie. She didn't back down. She never did. Not anymore. Not for a long time. Damon loved it and grabbed the back of her thighs, lifting her clean off her feet.

Bonnie wrapped her arms and legs around him accordingly. "You're not the only one who had an ordeal tonight. Aftercare goes both ways."

"Yes it does," he kissed her neck. "We should get started."

Another day lived, another night death had been avoided. The lights were off, generous amounts of heat pumped from the furnace. Cozy and together, Damon and Bonnie spooned in bed in a pair of matching pajamas, the former's arm wrapped snuggly around her waist, and the latter burrowing herself deeper into his chest.

"Are we going to talk about it?" Damon started the proceedings.

"We need to. We need to tell each other everything that happened tonight."

And so they did. Sparing no detail. Although there was one detail Bonnie held off in giving until everything else had been said. Now she felt it was the right time to say it.

"I think I saw your mother," Bonnie fessed up softly. She braced herself for an explosive reaction now being equipped with the knowledge he had gone grave digging.

Damon jerked up like Bonnie expected. His mouth moved but without any sound. She shifted partially to lie on her back to gauge him.

"What?!" finally came bursting out of his mouth. "You think you saw my mom?"

Bonnie nodded. "The lady who showed up when I was pretty much locked into a battle with the revenant…she fit the description I asked Stefan to give me when you had been unconscious."

Not knowing what to do with that information, Damon moved with vampire speed out of bed. He didn't pace so much as he stood frozen like a sentinel guarding a door.

"Did she say anything to you?"

"I asked her, kinda rudely," she chortled self-deprecatingly, "who the hell she was and she replied 'a ghost'."

"That was it?"

"Yeah."

"Did she try to hurt or threaten you?"

"No. She actually tried to help me. She had Esther's talisman."

At that, Damon whirled around, incredulous. "How the hell did she get that?"

"I don't know. I didn't get to ask because I was kind of preoccupied. I felt myself getting weaker, I was losing. I don't think I was coming close to dying, but my reserves were drying up faster than I've ever felt my magic leave my body. Matt showed up and you know the rest of the story…How do you feel about all this? Is it like when…?"

"When I learned Katherine had never been trapped in the tomb? Yeah, but a hundred times worse. It's my mother." Damon flung himself on the mattress, spooning Bonnie once again.

"Do you want to see her?"

"That's one question I haven't stopped to ask myself. She's clearly not the woman I remember but…what if she is? And if she's known all this time what happened to me and Stefan, if she knew her sons were vampires, why didn't she come to us? Was she that fucking high on blood she stopped caring? Stefan couldn't help himself and maybe it was the same way with her. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about this, but I know I'm too damn old to feel like I need my mother."

Hearing Damon say that made Bonnie ache inside a little because she could hear in his voice, even if he refuted it, but she could hear he did need his mother. Or had needed her at one point. Several points.

Bonnie turned over to face Damon. His luminous blue irises dipped down, looking at her searchingly. "If you could see her, talk to her, what's the one question you'd want answered more than anything?"

Damon threaded his fingers through Bonnie's hair, kissed her forehead. "I'd ask her…" Why the fuck did she leave us with that asshole, my dad. "I'd ask her if she loves being a hypocrite."

"How is she a hypocrite?"

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

"Yeah, but I rather do something else with that time…like sleep. It's got to be close to four in the morning."

"It's probably two."

"Later, Bonnie. I promise. Now sleep."

She tried and couldn't. Her eyes were burning but they refused to stay closed. Her head pounded with fatigue but was busy with reliving what happened. Anytime she made an attempt to sleep she'd see silver eyes, blood, her body disintegrating into dust, Esther's talisman. Normally Bonnie would be out before her head hit the pillow whenever she reached deep to execute a spell. Unfortunately for her, just an hour before dawn, sleep was a fickle lover.

Carefully Bonnie slipped out of bed donning her coat, gloves, and scarf. She quietly picked up her keys, grabbed her bag, and tip toed her way outside, hustling to her car. Within ten minutes she was on the highway headed west taking exit thirty-one when it was time.

This time of night on this side of the sleepy college town, the streets were vacant, but lined with non-descript buildings built in the late 70s and small row houses with tiny, fenced off front yards. Streetlights cast a dull shine to the slick pavement that at times was riddled with potholes and icy patches. Stopped at a red light, Bonnie saw a dark, bulky figure lopping down the street at a steady clip. Whoever it was moved with purpose probably just to get out of the frigid cold weather. Regardless, she kept vigil through her rearview mirror as the person darted into an alley or a side street. Once the light turned green she pressed her foot on the gas and kept going east on Reston until she came to an apartment complex where most of the residents were students of Whitmore U. She wedged her Prius into a compact space, grabbed her purse, and strode to the outside staircase.

She heaved her tired legs up three flights of stairs and banged her fist on apartment 309. She winced a bit when five minutes later the light next to the door beamed on.

Ezra answered sans shirt, rocking a pair of sweats. Signs he had been asleep were evident by the pillow crease on his cheek, and the fact he was yawning and squinting at her with one eye.

"Hey…what are you—?"

"Why does the Salvatore's mother have Esther Mikaelson's talisman?"

Ezra gulped.

By morning, Jeremy was wide awake and tossing clothing and hygiene products into his book bag. He had one stop to make before hitting the road, the bank to withdraw a significant amount of cash out his savings with the hope to bribe a witch to do a locator spell.

He stuffed a few stakes and vervain grenades into a side pocket, and was reaching for the handgun he easily purchased from a gun show (without a license) when the doorbell rang. He paused and wondered if Matt was up to answer it. Matter of fact, did Matt even come home last night? Well, Jeremy amended, he hadn't been home either. He had a relapse though he wouldn't call it that, and spent the night with some chick who claimed to be an econ major. The night had been pretty lackluster but he got laid, did shots, and didn't have to sleep alone.

Whoever was here laid on the bell again.

Huffing, Jeremy jogged downstairs, moving down them sideways to accommodate his big feet.

"All right, hold on," he called out when the bell went off once more. He threw open the door, annoyed.

That annoyance petered out the same way a twenty year old car would with over a hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Because standing on his doorstep…Ice filled his veins.

"Jenna?"

Jeremy swallowed his tongue. Nah, it couldn't be her. But. She was the right height, the right weight, and her hair was the right color—copperish blonde; however, the skin exposed in the short black coat she wore was the grayish tint of a staked vampire.

Jenna removed the dark sunshades concealing her eyes. Eyes that were the hue he remembered but the pupil? The pupil was a perfect circle of mercury.

"Hello, Jeremy. Won't you invite your poor, thirsty aunt inside?"

A/N: Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for reviewing!