Chapter twelve

"This whole thing is stupid in the first place!" Damon shouted at Stefan and Lexi in frustration. "How can they both just be gone?"

"You don't need to open the tomb now, Damon," Stefan said calmly. "But Anna still does, to free her mother. "

"So, let me get this straight. Ben was...too fast for you? Ben...a stupid newbie vampire beat you and Lexi to it?"

"Hey!" Lexi interrupted.

"This isn't helping anyone," Stefan told his brother.

"No, it's not." Damon sighed. He didn't want this. He didn't want any more fighting or any more pain or suffering...or death. But he knew that if things kept going as they were, there would be at least one more death on his hands then he wanted. Bonnie's grandmother would die if she helped Bonnie to open the tomb. And that would fracture Bonnie and Elena's friendship. Not permanently of course but...for a while. And he didn't want Elena to go through anything else.

He didn't want to work with Anna either and he told Stefan all of this.

"Damon, if you don't want to see Elena hurt then you will do all of the things that you've done before. You don't want Anna to learn the truth and turn against Jeremy, do you?" Lexi pointed out.

Damon shook his head.

"Then you'll go talk to Bonnie's grandmother," Stefan asked.

"You just want to see me get a major headache again!" Damon grumbled.

"I thought we called a truce?" Stefan said wearily. "Since we know where Elena is I can go rescue them...but you have to go talk to the witch, to make amends. You wanted to change the past didn't you?"

...

Damon thought to himself that this was definitely on his list of top ten things he didn't want to do, as he knocked on the door of Bonnie's grandmother's house.

The witch stared at him coldly when she answered the door.

"Hello Ms Bennet," he said as politely as he could. "I'm wondering if you know..."

"No. Never," she interrupted him.

"Ok...last time this meeting ended up with threats and a really bad headache...and it wasn't good. Just look in my eyes and you'll know that I'm not the same Damon Salvatore that your granddaughter knows. Just...let her know that you can trust me now ok? When you next see her. Just tell her that."

He turned to leave, but she called out his name and he stopped and turned round to look at her expectantly.

"You are different," she said quietly. "I don't know how. You're not even the same...soul as you were. How is that possible?"

"Vampires don't have souls," he reminded her just as quietly.

She smiled. "Well, whatever you do have, it's as close to a soul as you're going to get. Whatever miracle has made this happen...I will let Bonnie know. Now get off my porch Damon."

Not as bad as he was expecting.

...

Stefan had saved Bonnie and Elena, after hunting down Ben. They were back at the Bennet house and Bonnie's grandmother wasn't that happy.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie was saying. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"Once again, we witches are pulled down by vampire problems." Bonnie's grandmother said bitterly. She glanced up at Stefan and Damon. "No offence meant."

"None taken," Stefan said.

Bonnie noticed that Stefan and Elena stood as far apart from each other as they could get, and that Stefan stood very close to Lexi.

It was still hard for her to imagine her friend and Stefan apart. Even after the dance when she should have been used to things by mow, it still seemed strange.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked her grandmother. "Ben and Anna are still out there."

"We still need to open the tomb, unfortunately," Damon told them all, earning himself a glare from Bonnie. "Not to release Katherine...I couldn't care less about that bitch!"

This earned him a surprised look from Elena.

"But...we don't want to cross Anna. She's friends with Jeremy...we don't know what she would do."

Bonnie's grandmother nodded. "We'll open the tomb and kill them all with fire. Burn them to Ashes."

"Except Anna's mother," Elena said, still looking at Damon in suspicion. "Unfortunately we need to keep Anna happy for the moment. I don't want Jeremy to go through any more pain and hurt. Once I've talked to him we can explain everything to him, and then deal with Anna afterwards..." she looked at the two witches in the room. "I promise!"

Bonnie's grandmother nodded reluctantly. "There is always something to delay things."

...

Anna was at the tomb, knowing that Damon wouldn't stop at anything to get what he wanted...Katherine's release. Not knowing that Damon had had a change of heart.

She had forgotten about the party being held in the woods by all those stupid teenagers who were as clueless as the adults of this town. All of them were so clueless it was unbelievable. Especially this one, Jeremy. But there was something different about him. He wasn't as clueless as the others...he believed there was something more out there. But he just couldn't see what was right in front of his face.

The stupid thing was that she actually liked Jeremy. It was at times like this that she wished she was still a human and could have lived a normal life. Instead she had to knock Jeremy out and take him to a tomb full of monsters and use him as blackmail for them to open the tomb for her, because her previous plan failed. Because that's what she and her mother were. Monsters. Jeremy had no idea. He was thinking, whatever he thought was out there, that it was some big adventure, some fairytale life but it wasn't.

She did regret what she had done, but she would do anything for her family. And she couldn't leave her mother in there any moment longer.

The way that things went, Anna needn't have worried about anything.

"This plan is stupid," Damon was whispering fiercely to Stefan, Lexi and Elena as the witches began their chant to open the tomb.

"We need to get Anna's mother out of there," Elena whispered back. "And I thought you wanted Katherine..."

"Katherine isn't even in the damn tomb ok?" Stefan looked at him sharply.

"What are you talking about Damon?"

"She's not even there. And if any of us vampires go in the tomb...we get stuck in there forever. Change it," he turned round to the witches in frustration.

By this time everyone was staring at him in shock.

"Damon, how do you know..." Elena was saying, but he was ignoring her.

"I know you're only opening the doorway, not the seal. Also know that you can open the seal temporarily so do it. Although I stress that you don't. Especially you..." he pointed at the older witch.

"Are you threatening her?" asked Bonnie, angered at being interrupted.

"No, I'm warning her. The outcome won't be good."

"Damon..." warned Stefan, knowing his brother was treading on dangerous ground. Who knew what would happen if he revealed too much? Although maybe he should, who knew?

"But if you're going to do the spell, then you can't even try to trick us it won't work. So you'd better do it my way."

The two witches managed to open the tomb and the next few minutes were scary as hell for Elena as she and Damon walked through the darkened passage to the back of the tomb. Elena shivered as she heard the vampires. And at first she didn't know what it was. "What is that?" She whispered to Damon in terror.

"They can feel you," Anna's voice came from behind them and before Damon even knew what was happening Anna had hold of Elena, was cutting her wrist and feeding her blood to her mother.

"How..." Damon started.

"The witches were distracted by all their annoying chanting," Anna said, grinning evilly. "And Stefan and dear Lexi were distracted by killing Ben. Thanks by the way, for making this job so much easier for me."

"It's only because Jeremy..." Elena began earnestly, worried for her brother.

"Oh, him?" Anna helped her weakened mother up from the ground. "He's outside. Had to bring him in case none of you co operated. But it all worked out fine so...you can have him back, gladly."

Damon didn't say a word, but he was secretly thinking that when the time came he would gladly stake Anna and be done with her. And also this time round, he wouldn't be snapping Jeremy's neck to prove a point.

"I don't know about you people, but I'm sick of the dark," Elena snapped, pushing passed Anna.

"We live for the dark," Anna smiled back at her. "We're vampires. In case you were forgetting, so loved up with Stefan as you are. Are you forgetting what he really is?"

Damon flinched at that comment, and Elena was unusually silent, which made him a bit happier.

They managed to escape from the tomb just in time as the witches were considerably weakened by the magic they were using.

All Elena was interested in was making sure that her friends and Jeremy were ok and she was glad when they were.

...

Later on that evening, Damon came over to Elena's home to find out if she was ok. He was extremely surprised by her reaction. She pulled him towards her and kissed him deeply, holding him close to her, wrapping him up in her arms.

He was so shocked that at first he couldn't react to what was happening. But then he definitely couldn't not react for much longer.

"Elena..." he whispered as she pulled away, she looked flushed and slightly embarrassed, looking away shyly.

"I'm sorry..." she murmured.

"What was that?" he asked finally.

"I've been fighting with myself if I should tell you. In Atlanta, when we kissed. I felt...well, I saw...things. Things that I somehow knew hadn't happened yet. And today in the tomb, you were acting very...you knew things you couldn't possibly have known and I had to know, what was going on. This was the only way I could think of."

He felt disappointment hit him. Was that it? Did she feel anything at all for him yet? Or was he rushing things. Was it too soon?

"well, you could have just asked!" He told her moodily.

"Damon...it's not like that. Really, it's just..."

"Well?" he cut her off suddenly. "What did you see?"

TBC

Sorry, cliff hanger. Let me know what you think please!