Title: Wings of a Butterfly
Author: Traxits
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries (TV series).
Pairing: Damon Salvatore/Jeremy Gilbert.
Chapter Rating: Mature.
Chapter Content Notes: Violence, character death.
Chapter Word Count: 3135 words.
Author's Notes: Ah, my apologies for the delay between chapters seven and eight! I wasn't expecting this chapter to be so draining when I started writing it. On the plus side, I don't believe there will be too many more delays with the last two chapters. Hard to believe that this journey is almost over.

[[ … Chapter Eight: Running … ]]

It was only a few days later that the plan was put in motion. Jeremy was at Johnathan's when the sheriff came by. They had just finished packing the muzzles— Jeremy was still struggling to keep his nausea down at the sight of them— and the stakes. The sheriff was already passing out the wooden bullets, and Jeremy accepted his handful with shaking fingertips. Johnathan had given him a revolver earlier, which Jeremy had quickly stashed in a pocket.

"Lockwood wants us to begin immediately. I've already started rounding up the men."

Jeremy and Johnathan exchanged looks, and Jeremy offered a small smile. "I'll go fetch the Salvatores then." He didn't wait for an answer, just slipped out the door and started walking. He could see the first of the cages already being washed down with Vervain water, and he shuddered before he turned toward the Salvatore house. He glanced at the apothecary when he walked by, and he felt his breathing steady when he realized that Pearl and Anna weren't there.

Perhaps they'd already left.

He snorted at his own foolishness— he knew that Pearl got caught— and he pulled his jacket a little closer around himself. He could still faintly hear the men back at the Gilbert house, laughing and joking in spite of what they were about to do. They weren't true believers.

They thought the entire thing was a game. He felt sick at the thought of what they might do during their 'game.' It was cruelty, no matter how it was sliced, because at the heart of it a single fact remained: Vampires were people. They felt pain and had emotions, even if they were capable of turning them off. He put a hand to his chest, trying to calm his heart. He could afford to be so sensitive, not and keep himself safe.

By the time he reached the house, it was dark, and Stefan was running out of the house, blood staining the collar of his white shirt. Jeremy caught him as he ran blindly down the road, and he stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Jeremy could hear the slightly 'clip-clop' of horses' hooves coming up the street behind him.

"Stefan, breathe. What happened?" He shook Stefan's shoulders, trying to make Stefan look up at him. "Stefan!" He could smell the alcohol coming off of Stefan, and he realized in the space of a heartbeat what had happened.

Stefan looked up at him, eyes glassy, and whispered, "Katherine. Father ... he tricked me."

"Made you drink Vervain." Jeremy closed his eyes, nodded, and pushed Stefan toward the oncoming men. "Get them, pretend to be on their side," he said quickly, and just as he started toward the house, he heard a rustle from the other side of the path. He cast a look toward the men, and then he slipped over there. He ran straight into Pearl, and his breath caught as he saw Annabelle clinging to her skirts.

They stood there, staring at one another for several minutes, and Jeremy could hear the men charging into the Salvatore house. Any moment, and they would be dragging Katherine out, and he was certain that Damon would come out fighting shortly after. He swallowed, and he held up his hands. He needed control of the situation, needed Pearl to trust him.

"Miss Pearl, wait." He reached out and grabbed her arm, and she hissed before jerking herself away from him. "Pearl, I know. I know what you are."

She went completely still, and her eyes widened. Jeremy released her, holding up his hands again, trying to look as disarming as possible. He must not have succeeded, because her pupils still narrowed to pinpricks. He frowned at her and slowly reached into his pocket to pull out a small piece of Vervain. She hissed again, but she didn't bare fangs. Not yet.

"We don't have time for this. Listen, you didn't steal the right thing from Johnathan. You didn't take the vampire hunting device." He looked back over his shoulder, and he blew out a breath. "You have to get Anna out of here."

Her eyes narrowed, and Pearl glanced down toward the girl beside her before she nodded. "We need horses," she finally said, and Jeremy nodded. He couldn't let her get them, couldn't let her spend the next hundred years under the church starving to death.

He touched her arm, and something passed between them, an understanding perhaps. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. He probably would never see her again. "Get Harper and Emily," he told her, and then he plowed back into the fray, pushing through the men struggling to get Katherine far enough back in the cage that they could fit a few more bodies inside. Jeremy didn't look at her. He couldn't bear to see Elena's face with that damned muzzle on.

The screaming was horrific, and everyone ran blindly from the men with guns, Johnathan leading the way, vampire compass in hand. Katherine was finally secured in the cage, and Jeremy saw Damon and Stefan arguing before Damon stormed off. Jeremy felt his heart twist, and then he was focused on the horses. He only needed two; Anna could ride double with her mother if necessary, and Emily couldn't leave Mystic Falls.

He swallowed back a bitter taste. Emily had to be burned at the stake in a few years, once someone finally figured out that she was a witch. She would have to make a deal with Damon somehow, in order to secure her family's future. Jeremy would figure that out later.

"Jeremy!"

He nearly dropped the reins he'd unhooked, and he turned to scowl at Johnathan. "You scared me," he muttered, even as he went back to the horses. "Need these. We have some runners." Jeremy shrugged and hoisted himself up onto one of them. He tugged on the reins of the second one. "I'll be back when we get these locked up."

"Jeremy," Johnathan stopped him, a hand lightly resting on Jeremy's knee. "You do your family proud," he said quietly, and Jeremy managed a smile before he stirred the horse into a trot, dislodging his ancestor's hand. A few months ago, he might have been proud of those words, might have been pleasantly honored at the knowledge that Johnathan would surely mention him in the journals. Now, all he could think about was the fact that so many were going to die.

He could hardly keep the horse under control, with his own nerves and the fear spiking in the back of his throat and the thoughts flying through his head, but Damon's teaching was solid. He somehow navigated the beast over to where Pearl and Annabelle and Harper and Emily were all waiting. He slid down off of the first horse and handed Harper the reins.

"Your hoops, Miss Pearl," he said quickly, and she nodded before she hiked her skirt up and began unhooking them. They would be too unweildy to wear on the horse, considering how fast they would have to travel. Anna didn't need any prompting, just followed her mother's lead. Soon as they could, Harper and Jeremy helped Pearl onto the horse, draping her skirts carefully down the side, and then they got Anna up behind her. Jeremy's hand lingered over Anna's, and he smiled up at her.

"I'm not lost anymore, Anna," he whispered, and he laughed at the confusion on her face. She wouldn't know what he was talking about. She hadn't told him yet that she liked the 'lost' guys. Then he handed his revolver off to Harper. "Keep them safe. You have six wooden bullets in there."

Harper offered him a salute, and Jeremy returned it before he watched them go. Soon as he was convinced that they would get away, he grabbed Emily's hand. "Are you ready?" he asked, and she nodded quickly. He smiled, trying to look calm and confident. "If anyone asks, Katherine kept you confused."

Emily's smile looked a great deal calmer than Jeremy's probably did. "I know what to say," she assured him, and then they were running. Screams and shots and shouting filled the air around them, but they stuck close to the cage. Emily didn't stop to ask Jeremy what he was doing, and he was grateful. He supposed that she thought he knew what was going to happen, but truthfully, he had no clue. He did know that at some point, Damon and Stefan would come for Katherine. They would come, they would be shot by their father, and they would die.

Jeremy's hand was shaking in Emily's, and she did her best to keep him calm, squeezing his hand reassuringly and smiling any time that he looked back at her. It didn't really help, but he appreciated the thought. He just wished that he had more details.

It finally happened on the cage's way back toward the church. Jeremy bit his knuckle to keep from calling out when he saw Damon and Stefan, both of them desperately pulling Katherine from the cage, stopping long enough to get the muzzle off of her. The gunshots stopped Jeremy's heart.

He bit down harder, and he blinked quickly, trying to keep the tears at bay. Damon went down first, and Jeremy actually tried to run toward him. Emily pushed him down in the bushes that they were hidden in, and Jeremy couldn't stop the tears, couldn't stop himself from sobbing into the dried leaves and dirt. He shoved the back of his fist into his mouth, stifling the scream bubbling up in his throat.

His heart ached, his throat was tight, and so help him, when Stefan went down as well, Jeremy broke. It was a flood of sobs that he had no control over, and Emily finally grabbed a handful of her skirt to push into his mouth to keep him quiet. Giuseppe walked over their bodies— he walked. Over. Them.— and snorted before he forced Katherine back into the cage. There was a crack of a whip, and then the cage started moving again.

Damon and Stefan were both completely still, and when Emily finally let Jeremy go, he raced over to them. Damon was laying flat on his back, eyes blank and glassy as they stared up at the night sky. Blood was caked around his lips, and Jeremy gently pushed his hair back from his face. He buried his head against Damon's chest, doing his best not to cry even more now that he had Damon in his arms.

"Tell me," Jeremy ignored how his voice cracked, "that Katherine was feeding them both." He lifted his eyes to Emily, who was kneeling over Stefan. She stilled, and then she nodded very slowly. Jeremy blew out the breath he hadn't realized that he had been holding. It was the first good news that he'd had since he'd been dropped back in 1863. He hauled Damon up into his arms, and— Damon was a lot heavier than he looked— stumbled off of the road. He had to drag Stefan, even with Emily's help.

He left them all on the side of the road, hidden in a ditch, and he ran back toward the Salvatore house. No one was there, and he was grateful as he stole yet another pair of horses. He didn't meet a soul on the road, and when the blaze of the church lit the sky, Jeremy stopped just long enough to send up a quiet prayer for those caught in it. Emily hadn't been there to save them; she was still with the Salvatore brothers.

Jeremy got back to them as quickly as he could, and, with Emily's help, got Damon draped over one horse and Stefan over the other. He gently assisted Emily to ride on the horse with Stefan, and as soon as she was squared away, he pulled himself onto the other one. He couldn't stop himself from touching Damon's back, from reassuring himself that Damon was real and while he was dead now, he'd be moving around again soon.

Emily led the way, although, if Jeremy was completely honest with himself, he didn't pay attention in the slightest to where they went. He just knew that there was a small house on the edge of the lake, and that Emily dropped from the horse as soon as they hit the clearing. Jeremy helped her carry Stefan and Damon into the house. He stopped and glanced across the lake, where he could see the church still burning. The screams had finally stopped.

"They weren't in pain long," Emily murmured, smoothing out her skirt as she stood beside him.

Jeremy nodded slowly. The burning process had been sped up by Vervain wood in the church, so most of the vampires had probably died fairly quickly. Considering they'd been burned to death, at least. Emily touched his hand again, and Jeremy let her. He couldn't feel anything, and he wasn't surprised. He felt as though he'd been on a rollercoaster.

"You should take the horses back. If I'm caught with them, I could be hanged." When Jeremy hesitated, looking back toward the small house, Emily smiled at him. "They won't wake for a few hours. You have time."

Jeremy blushed, and when Emily motioned toward the horses, he sighed and nodded. "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, and she laughed. Too late, he realized that it would be more mocking than anything in this time period. He rubbed the back of his neck, then he climbed back onto one of the horses. Emily handed him the reins to the other one, and he turned back toward the Salvatore house.

He arrived just as Johnathan and Giuseppe did, and he offered them both the best smile that he could manage. For once, he was grateful for the numbness coating him. They both looked so pleased with their success from the night that Jeremy was certain that he would have hit at least one of them had he been in a more normal frame of mind.

"Wonderful hunting tonight. We killed twenty-five!" Johnathan's smile was genuine, and Jeremy tilted his head a little, wondering how long it would take him to realize that Pearl was gone. He kept flipping open the watch and closing it again, as though to confirm that they really had gotten all of them. "How many did you get, Jeremy?"

"Enough. ... Twenty-five vampires, really? How did you manage to get twenty-five in this town to begin with?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow, and he snorted when Giuseppe tried to protest. "Don't even," he said quickly, not caring that he was cutting off his host. Giuseppe would be getting his soon enough. "Have you thought of how to document this?"

They all three headed inside the house, and Johnathan glanced quickly toward Giuseppe. "We thought we would blame a Confederate regiment for firing on the church. Battle of Willow Creek."

"We will, of course, be documenting the loss of civilian life," Giuseppe interjected, and his eyes were narrowed as he studied Jeremy.

Jeremy simply raised an eyebrow as he fell into one of the chairs in the study. Giuseppe poured drinks for everyone, but Jeremy shook his head. "How many did we lose?"

"Seventeen." Johnathan glanced up toward Giuseppe, then ammended it to, "Nineteen." He opened the large book that he had brought, and Giuseppe handed him a pen. "I will be certain to keep an accurate count."

"The battle of Willow Creek." A wry smile twisted Jeremy's lips. He couldn't help but wonder how many other 'battles' had been recorded and falsified to cover up a different sort of tragedy. "So the final count of civilian deaths will be thirty-nine?"

"Those were hardly civilians—"

"He's correct." Giuseppe sighed as he drained his glass, then poured another. "We will count the demons as civilians for the sake of the archives. Your words will endure the test of time, Johnathan. They must be believable."

Johnathan bowed his head.

"Although, certain details can be kept only in this room." Giuseppe took another long drink, and Johnathan's pen stopped in mid-sentence. Jeremy smiled faintly as he realized that Johnathan instinctively moved it to the side, preventing any drips on the paper. Long time writer's habit for the time period. "My sons, for example." Giuseppe's eyes narrowed, and Johnathan quickly looked away.

"Innocent victims of Willow Creek, Mr. Salvatore?" Jeremy was perfectly aware that baiting Mr. Salvatore was not a good idea. But the numb sensation seemed to be creeping further and further out. He had to do something. "Instead of shameful vampire sympathizers?"

"I don't like your tone." Giuseppe drained the second glass and slammed it down on the table.

Jeremy leapt to his feet. "And I don't like you. Had you kept a better leash on your boys this wouldn't have happened. You kept one of those things under your roof." Jeremy snorted, and Johnathan laid a warning hand on his shoulder. Jeremy jerked away, scowling. "Had you spent less time beating your sons and more time actually paying attention, perhaps you would have noticed something."

"Get out. I want you out of my house." Giuseppe was red-faced, and Johnathan, sensing that this was something that he did not want to be in the middle of, grabbed the book. He left the pen on the desk and escaped quickly, ducking his head down.

He stopped only long enough to touch Jeremy's arm. "You can stay with me," he murmured, and then he was gone.

Giuseppe crossed the room, and Jeremy couldn't back down. He needed something, needed to feel something. He was as dead inside as Damon, only, his ring wasn't helping with this. Carefully, he raised his chin. He was a good two or three inches taller than Giuseppe.

"I was leaving anyway. Wasn't comfortable staying with a murderer anyway."

Jeremy was ancticipating the first punch. Enough scrapping with Tyler had given him basic fighting skills, and while he would probably never be a true fighter, he could hold his own. The second one though, the one to his stomach, that one caught him off guard, and he doubled over, coughing and trying to catch his breath. Giuseppe couldn't seem to stop though, because then he was kicking and shouting and Jeremy was pretty sure that he heard glass breaking.

The pain exploding over his nerves was enough to let him know that he was alive. It scorched every last trace of the numbness out of his body, and then suddenly, Giuseppe was gone. Jeremy rolled over, trying to focus through blurry vision. He caught the faintest impression of Stefan, and, strangely enough, the only thing that Jeremy could think was, so glad I'm not bleeding.