Last chapter of One world apart, guys.


One world apart, part 29: To come back

Damon stared, wide-eyed, at the place Connor Jordan had been standing, only a few minutes before. The place where four hands had appeared and grabbed the ghost. Just in front of the clouded water where the ghost had been pulled under.

The vampire wasn't sure exactly of what had happened. He only knew he had gotten Jordan to a small beach of the quarry, on the other side of where they had intended to get rid of Silas, later. He had been expecting to be shot, probably with werewolf-poison-laced bullets, and to die like that. Or maybe he'd have been able to save himself at the last minute. It didn't really matter, at this point.

What mattered was that he hadn't expected some unknown beings to draw the ghost underwater and save his life in the process. What mattered was that he had no idea who and what were the people who had saved him.

His mind was unclouding a bit, and he managed to stand upright without his abductor's help, for once. Not that he had an abductor anymore. Wary, he took two steps back from the shore. Just in case. Because they had taken care of Jordan didn't mean they were here to save him.

After a minute or so – Damon wasn't sure, because he was still under the influence of the vervein – the water shimmered, and all of a sudden, two women emerged from it. Their soaked clothes and hair were falling all over there features, which didn't seem to please them. One had short, dark brown hair, the other had blondish brown hair. There was definitely something familiar with them, but right now Damon couldn't say what.

They were also bleeding in several places, as if they had been cut all over their body. It didn't seem to be a pleasant experience. The vampire would know, actually.

They had yet to look at him.

"I'm not ever doing that again! Not. Ever. Again!"

"Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, but it's not a mirror. It's water. The reflections are fragmentary at best! Meaning, we were fragmentary too! Did you even look at your wounds?"

Oh. He knew these voices. He had no idea how it was possible, but he knew these voices. He knew these women.

Even if they weren't supposed to be here.

Not that he'd complain.

Damon felt his balance shift for some reason, and almost landed right back face in the ground. Two hands got a hold of him before that happened. He didn't fall.

Andie helped her friend to stay up as she could, while Rose slapped him back and smacked him forth. Not too hard, obviously, but hard enough to keep him awake. It wasn't as if any damage would last on his vampire body, anyway. Rose may not be a vampire anymore, but she hadn't forgotten what it meant to be one.

"Eh, no point in doing that... That guy almost roofied him with vervain. We'll just get him into the car, and drive back to Mystic Falls. With a bit of luck, he won't be out of it much longer."

Damon tried to say something, but he felt bad. Very bad. He had no recollection of reacting like that to vervein, not even once. Maybe Jordan had added things to the plant. Who knew, there could be another plant that made it more effective...? Or maybe it was because he was getting verveined too often lately. Though he was pretty sure he had known worse...

No words got past his mouth, only a disgusting gurgle. He stopped trying.

Rose tore her eyes away from her drugged friend, and laughed a bit.

"Damon Salvatore speechless. That's a new one."

Andie sighed, looked at herself, and mourned her clothes. She only hoped they wouldn't get anyone's attention on the way back, because they sure didn't look like normal citizen right now. Herself, she had disappeared something like one year ago, almost. They were covered in small injuries, soaked to the bone, Damon looked like he had been roofied, and the car wasn't theirs. What could go wrong?

"Let's go to the boarding house. It's not right in the middle of town, so there's that, at least. Maybe no one will see us. And I'm pretty sure we could borrow decent clothes from Damon, even if it won't be our kind of things."

Rose agreed, and let Andie drive. She hadn't had the possiblity to do much driving, when she had been a vampire, because it needed her to have tinted windows on the car, which was rarely hers to begin with. And Trevor had been the one enthusiastic to learn.

When they got to the boarding house, there was absolutely no one around in the neighborhood. Better for them, they guessed. They dragged the inconscious vampire inside, and let him on the nearest sofa. Rose had completely forgotten how heavy things could be to human beings.

Considering they were human. Neither Rose nor Andie would have bet on that, not with what they could do, now. They didn't know how much they could do, actually, but they knew no human could do that...

Now, the question was, were they human nonetheless, like witches and doppelgangers, or were they just something else, like werewolves?

A door creaked on the first floor, and the two women looked up, wary. Damon didn't usually invite his enemies in, but these enemies didn't always wait for his authorization either.

Who they saw immediately calmed them. Not that looks couldn't hide power, but because the red-headed woman was looking at them with bleared eyes. She was obviously wounded, if the white-turned-reddish bandage on her leg said anything. She wasn't a vampire, of that they could be sure.

Bleared or not, the woman's eyes flashed with recognition when her eyes landed on Damon. In a moment she looked alert. She walked down the stairs as fast as she could, and joined them.

"What happened?"

"A psycho got him, possibly in the spine, with a vervained blade. He should be fine soon enough."

The red head almost rolled her eyes, and sat down in an armchair. She looked exhausted.

"What else is new? I take a werewolf bullet in the leg for him this morning, and he gets himself stabbed with vervein this afternoon! Did you save his life too? This guy can't take care of himself..."

Rose and Andie stared at the woman in surprise, reconsidering her wound under a new angle, but a chuckle kept them from saying anything.

"Men in general can't take care of themselves, it's not only me, Magdalena."

They all turned around to look at Damon, who was finally awake. He was pale, and didn't look like he'd stand up any time soon, but knowing him and his vampire cheating body, he'd be on his two feet before an hour. Rose swatted him on the head, just on principle.

"Don't you dare do us such a fear again, fool."

The vampire only smiled weakly. Then his brow creased, and he took a better look at the three women. Two of whom he was certain weren't supposed to be here.

"Weren't you...?"

Andie sat down, relieved, and smiled at him. It was weird to see her smile when she was covered in small amounts of blood here and there. Andie had never been the one Damon would have pictured tangled in the supernatural, not even after he had gotten her in it.

"You friend, Ariane. She found the mirror a few days ago, and she took it without telling you, just in case there was nothing to do. She showed it to a witch friend out of town. Together they found out how to get us out, she came back to where our accidents had happened, and well... Here we are."

Damon noted in a corner of his mind to thank Ariane again for what she had done when he'd see her. Then he remembered that once more, she wouldn't want to see him before a few decades. He felt strangely guilty for what had just happened with the reaper, but said nothing of it.

"And... you saved me?"

The two women shared a look before answering.

"Yeah. We saw that guy take you out of the football field, and we followed."

Something didn't add up. If the two had seen him so soon, why hadn't they intervened? Not that he wished they had, because none of them had any idea of how dangerous Connor Jordan was, but still, it would have been logical to take care of things sooner, from their point of view.

"Coudn't you have just broken his neck or somehing, Rose?"

She looked uneasy for a moment. Then she gestured at herself, at her bruised and battered body. Damon suddenly understood what wasn't right with her. He had no idea of how it had happened, but there was no denying it.

"You're not a vampire anymore."

He said it flatly, a bit of surprise failing to be heard in his tone, but his lack of apparent reaction saying enough.

Rose nodded, but Andie was the one to talk.

"We're not sure we are human either, you know. When your friend pulled us out of the mirror, she told us we wouldn't be the same as before, and she was right. Somehow, it's as if we still have the potential to be inside reflections, if you see what I mean. We didn't actually follow the car when you went to the quarry; we crossed into the wing mirror, and we let that guy drive us too. Then when we pulled him under, we were in fact in the reflections of the water, and we crossed back into this world."

Rose put her left arm nearer, and Damon could see that her wounds looked more like the body had been folded unnaturally. The skin was bruised under the pressure, and the skin seemed to have cracked open, not to have been cut.

"That's why we're in this state. Reflections on water aren't flat or unique, and well... I won't be doing that again any time soon. Consider yourself lucky we had no idea of what it'd do to us."

"Nah, you'd have saved me anyway."

Damon was teasing her, and Rose pouted, as if to say "we'll see". Still, knowing he was the reason they were both in this state, the vampire couldn't help but to offer some of his blood.

"Maybe it won't work. It doesn't work on werewolves."

"Let's try anyway."

Two minutes later, Andie and Rose were in perfect shape, forgetting the fact that they looked like refugees from Katrina right after the storm, who'd have been rescued after their house had fallen on them. Magdalena left to get them some feminine clothes, while they were taking a shower. They needed it.

Damon stayed on the sofa for a time. He still wasn't alright, but he wasn't feeling bad either.

After one quarter of hour of doing absolutely nothing, his phone rang. He idly wondered what was taking the girls so much time to get clean, but let go of that thought when he saw the number calling him. In less than a second, he was talking to Alaric.

"Is something wrong?"

"How sad is that, that whenever someone call, our first question is if something went awry?"

Damon's latest feeling of fear dissipated. Still, he was a bit anxious. He had just gotten back two of his best friends, but now he couldn't forget that Alaric, him, would leave again. The nexus ring had reacted when he had held onto Ariane: the center stone made of their mixed blood had somehow evaporated into nothingness. The vampire doubted it was still good for anything.

"Very sad. So, I guess everything is alright?"

"Hum, yeah. No problem. Just..."

Someone grunted in the background, and Damon heard Ric curse under his breath. The next moment, their was the sound of a sharpened blade cutting into flesh, and something heavy was smashed on the ground. Or maybe it just fell heavily, the vampire wasn't really sure.

"...Sorry. An hybrid was waking up. So, I was saying. I..."

There was a pause, as if Alaric was holding his breath, unable to speak for a time.

"I'm pretty sure drinking your blood got me back amongst the living, Damon."

The vampire dropped his cellphone at the news. He stared at it for a dozen of seconds, and finally managed to take it back into his hands. He fumbled a bit with his words after that, though.

"You... you... you're certain?"

Alaric paused dramatically on the other side of the communication. It was likely he wasn't doing it on purpose, true, but Damon's heart raced nonetheless.

Finally there was an answer, not as definitive as the vampire would have liked, but good enough for now. Anyway, they'd know soon enough...

"There's no way to be certain, Damon, but I don't feel like I'm on the Other Side anymore."

Damon spent the rest of the day in euphoria, waiting for Ric to come back when things would have ended. When Elena called, saying Stefan wasn't answering, he told her he was just busy with Silas.