I do not own anything in this story. The CW created the universe, and I just play in it.
This is my first fanfiction. Please rate and review!
"Well, here we are." Elena looked up at the tall, imposing cliff in front of her. "This matches all the sketches on the map, at least."
They'd been hiking for hours. Early that morning, after a quick breakfast at the inn, Damon had driven them to the forest five miles north of town. From there, they'd loaded up on hiking gear and trekked through the forest. It should've been an easy mile-long walk to the waterfall, but Bonnie's herbs were starting to wear off. Damon had coughed the whole way there, although there hadn't been any blood.
"Slow down, Elena." Damon sank to the ground and leaned back against a rock. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily. "I'm not"—cough—"feeling so well."
Elena crouched down next to him. "I know you're not feeling your best, Damon, but we've still got a lot of climbing to do and it's already past noon. According to the maps, the waterfall is on the other side of the mountain, but since you have to drink from the top this is the shortest way up. But at this rate it's going to take forever to reach the top." She gently brushed his hair back from his face. "Okay?"
Damon slumped back and coughed again. "All right, just give"—cough—"me a minute." He slowly pulled himself to his feet, like an old man, and leaned his hand on Elena's shoulder. "Okay, let's go."
Elena bent down and began pulling supplies out of her backpack—rappelling ropes, hiking boots, clips and latches of every size. "Clip this around your waist, and make sure to double-knot the rope. I really don't need you falling and hurting yourself."
"Please, Elena, you don't need to worry about me." Ten minutes later, they were both decked out in full hiking gear. Damon tightened the rope around his waist. "Are you sure I can't just use my vampire superpowers and fly to the top?"
"Damon, I don't think you're strong enough to do that." Elena looked up the cliff, shading her face against the sun. "And it's probably five hundred feet up. You'd barely be able to do that on your best day."
"Fair"—cough—"point. Let's go."
They were about forty feet up when Damon doubled over in coughs. This time, there was blood. Elena watched as the red drops fell to the ground. "Damon, are you sure you're okay?"
"It's not like I really have a choice at this point, Elena." He wiped the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. "Just keep climbing, will you? And don't look down."
Elena concentrated on finding niches and crevices in the rock where she could dig in her hands and feet. She tried to ignore the sound of Damon's coughs behind her, but they only got worse and worse. "Damon, you really don't sound good…"
"Elena. Shut." Cough. "Up."
When they were about two hundred feet off the ground, they came upon a flat expanse of rock about ten feet wide. Elena flopped down on the rock and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "Wow, we are really high up." She looked around at the tops of the trees of the forest beneath them, and way off in the distance, the curls of smoke that were the town of Boyce.
Damon collapsed down beside her. "Elena…my arm…" He was cradling his left arm close to his body, and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his face.
"Oh my God, Damon." Elena slid his jacket off and gasped at what she saw. The wound was now bleeding at the spot where Tyler's fangs had made contact, and the dark patches had spread to Damon's right shoulder. She fished around inside her backpack and pulled out an Ace bandage, which she used to secure Damon's arm tightly to his side. He hissed in pain when she moved his left arm. "I'm sorry, Damon, I'm sorry!"
He sank back against the rock, looking spent. "I guess I'm not looking too good, huh."
"That," Elena said, repacking her bag and leaning back against him, "is the understatement of the century. How are you supposed to climb the rest of the cliff if you can't move that arm?"
"Elena, maybe you should…" Damon broke off, coughing. "Maybe you should just let me go."
"What?" Elena whipped her head around to stare at him. "What did you just say? No. No, no, no. Not a chance, Damon."
"How do you propose I make it up the cliff, then?" Damon's eyes no longer looked exhausted. They looked angry. "I can't. I won't. Just let me die, okay? So it'll be quick."
"And what do you want me to do?" Elena demanded fiercely. "Sit back and watch you cough yourself to death? Stake you? Or, maybe you'd like me to push you off the cliff, make it a little easier! How can you expect me to cope with losing you, Damon? How?"
Damon was quiet. "I didn't know that you cared."
"How could you assume that?" Elena was now up on her feet, pacing back and forth angrily. "I broke up with Stefan because of my feelings for you, I came with you on this trip, I went against all my friends, my best friends, to be with you! I care about you, Damon. How could you think that I don't?"
"Because"—cough—"you never told me"—cough—"that you loved me." Damon was looking away now, his eyes fixed on something far off in the distance. "I told you that I loved you. But you"—cough—"never said it back."
Elena looked at him. "So all you needed was to hear me say it? Couldn't you tell?"
"Tell what?" Damon gave her a quirky little smirk.
Elena rolled her eyes at him. "Damon Salvatore," she whispered, leaning in close. "Couldn't you tell that I love you?"
Their lips met, but it was nothing like their previous kiss. Their previous kiss at the inn had been soft and timid. This kiss was full of all the unsaid words that neither of them could bring themselves to say. Elena felt Damon run his tongue over her teeth, felt the fullness of his lips against hers. She cradled his face in her hands.
Suddenly, there was something yanking her backwards. Elena screamed and thrashed against the force she couldn't see, the force pulling her further and further towards the edge of the cliff. But before they reached the edge, the force switched directions, yanking her upwards at inhuman speed. Elena shrieked as she hurtled up the cliff, watching rocks and twigs and ledges whiz by her nose. Then, in an instant, she was lying in a heap on the ground, and the force was gone.
Shakily, she got to her feet. She was standing on what looked like a raised platform of rock. The empty sky above her and the wide expanse of forest below her told her that she was in fact at the top of the mountain. Sure enough, on the other side of the ledge, there was a small pond of water rushing over the side of the cliff. The waterfall. The cure.
Elena started towards the pool, but a voice stopped her.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
Elena whirled around. Standing behind her was a woman, with short brown hair and narrowed green eyes. The resemblance she bore to Rose, Damon's vampire friend who'd died of a werewolf bite not long ago, was uncanny. Oddly enough, she was dressed in a red cocktail dress and high-heeled black pumps, not at all suitable attire for scaling a rocky cliff. And lying at her feet, barely conscious, was Damon.
"Damon!" Elena covered her mouth with her hands in horror. "What did you do to him?"
"It was just a mild sedative, don't worry." The woman had a slight European accent, but she spoke in crisp, stilted syllables. "You're Elena, aren't you?"
"Maybe," Elena said cautiously.
"Well then, Elena." The woman smiled broadly. "Welcome, to Werewolf Mountain."
Finally, the cure! Sorry this chapter took so long, but I got distracted with rewatching some season 4 episodes ;) I'm going to try to limit myself to posting only one or two chapters a day from now on. Hope you're enjoying the story so far! xox
