Thank you, once again, for the wonderful response to the last part. I will be changing the rating to 'M' within the next few parts – still undecided on which that is going to be. There are only two parts left to this story (maybe three) and I thank you all for your awesome support! Please continue to read and review. : )

On a side note, sorry that this part is so boring – just wrapping a few things up, but don't worry. The ones after this are going to be emotional, exciting, and sexual – so stay tuned. ; )

PS – "The Descent" was fucking amazing. Enough said!

Happy reading!

Ice
Part VI: Quiescent

Please, I know that we're different,
We were one cell in the sea in the beginning
And what we're made of was all the same once
We're not that different after all

-A Fine Frenzy, "The Minnow and the Trout"

"Don't touch anything, Katherine," Bonnie warned, twirling a dark curl around her finger, partly out of apprehension, even though she knew that she was perfectly safe. She eyed the dark-haired woman with disdain and suspicion, resisting the ever-present urge to drive a stake right through her heart and end her pitiful existence.

Katherine had been languidly dragging her index finger over the spines of leather-bound books on one of the shelves in the Salvatore living room. She turned a hateful glare on Bonnie and said, "I'm bored. What are you going to do to fix that? God, can't we at least play a game or something?" She smiled widely. "I like games."

"And why the hell should I care if you're bored?"

"Because when I'm bored bad things happen – perhaps to you," Katherine replied, her full lips curling into a devious smirk.

"Mm, you know what, Katherine? Stefan had to beg me to let you out in the first place; you're less intelligent than I thought if you think I wouldn't put a spell on you first. For one thing, you can't leave this house because of the threshold spell I put on it; for another, if you hurt anyone, it will be reflected back on to you. Remember? So don't try and play hard and fast with me because I've already won." Bonnie held the vampire's gaze steadily.

Katherine didn't reply – the witch was right.

"Besides," Bonnie continued levelly, "you promised to help us with Klaus, and more importantly, figure out where Damon might be - which you seemed to have actually done, since they're not back yet." Bonnie frowned at the clock – it was 1:05 am, which meant that Elena, Stefan, and Rose had been gone for over five hours.

Bonnie had snuck Katherine in – Elena and Rose had no idea what Stefan had done and she knew that when they found out, they weren't going to be very happy. Bonnie comforted herself with the fact that she could single-handedly put Katherine back in that tomb by herself.

Katherine sighed and sat on the couch, the jeans which she was unaccustomed to wearing rubbing against her legs irritatingly. "I ruined them, you know." Her voice was soft, almost lulling as she stared off into space, the pre-tense of banter now dissipated.

"What?" Bonnie said sharply. She sat on the other end of the couch, eyeing Katherine with suspicion. Even though Bonnie, at this moment, was in complete control of the vampire's fate, she was still weary. It was simply common sense; Katherine had more tricks up her sleeves than Houdini himself.

"Stefan and Damon," Katherine continued, "were not mine to have." The expression on her face hardened as she glanced sharply once at Bonnie and then looked away again.

Bonnie said nothing, letting the silence fall between them, the fire crackling loudly in the fireplace. The silence didn't last, however; a few moments later, the front door burst open. Stefan walked in, carrying Damon, Elena close at his side.

"Girls," he grunted, nodding at Bonnie and Katherine, "follow me." He started towards Damon's bedroom.

Bonnie grabbed the Grimoire but Katherine stared at Damon, open-mouthed and genuinely shocked.

As Elena passed by her ancestor, she resisted the urge to grab the nearest wooden object and stake her with it. Stefan had explained the situation concerning Katherine on the drive to the house and Elena had not responded well to that little bit of information. Katherine, for obvious reasons, could not be trusted. At this point, though, she was more desperate than Stefan. She would do anything to help Damon and anything to stop Klaus, even if it meant striking up a temporary alliance with the vampire.

Stefan carried Damon up to his room, the girls close behind him, and laid him down on the king-sized bed. The bedding was still crisp because the elder Salvatore hadn't slept in it for two nights.

Damon suddenly moaned in pain, grabbing Stefan's arm. "Stefan, it hurts," he whimpered. He was barely conscious, but he felt like he was on fire – his entire body ached and burned with a sensation that he had never felt before. Give in, Klaus' voice whispered at the back of his mind. He couldn't ignore it – God, no matter how hard he tried, it was constantly there.

Stefan looked helplessly at his brother and gently pried the hand off his arm. "I need you to relax, Damon," he said softly.

Elena sat down next to him, placing her hand on his forearm. "It's okay, Damon," she said soothingly. She looked at Bonnie. "He was unconscious and then suddenly he was awake and moaning in pain," she said, her voice tight with fright.

Bonnie swallowed her shock at Damon's ragged appearance. "What can I do to help, Stefan?"

Before Stefan could respond, though, Katherine appeared over her shoulder and gazed curiously at Damon. His eyes were open to mere slits. She observed him for a few seconds, gently probing Damon's eyes with her own. He was looking right at her, but her presence didn't seem to alarm him. "There's nothing you can do. Klaus is compelling him," Katherine said after a few moments of prolonged eye contact.

"What?" Elena snapped. "How is that possible?"

Katherine looked grimly at Elena, for once being serious with her doppelganger. "Once Klaus puts an idea in someone's mind, it doesn't matter where they are – it will stay there until he wants it gone. Although..." She inched closer to Damon.

Elena rose up from the bed, stepping in front of her. "Stay away," she growled, barely repressed anger leaking through her voice.

"Do you want my help or not?" Katherine snarled. "I've spent time with the man – I know how he thinks and I know what he might have done to Damon!"

Elena hastily back away, still glaring, as she took her seat beside Damon again.

Katherine observed Damon again, this time her expression weary. "See?" she said quietly, "here." She pressed a finger against the bruise on Damon's throat and he cried out in anguish. "Klaus poisoned his blood."

"He can do that?" Stefan said, looking from Katherine to his brother. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know," Katherine replied slowly. "But I'm sure that his fangs contain venom, and if he so chooses, can release it into the bloodstream of the victim." She looked at the man she had broken, repressing the surge of emotion that had risen up. She never thought she would ever see Damon reduced to this.

Bonnie had been flipping through the Grimoire. "Guys," she said slowly. "There's a cure for it."

"What is it?" Damon whispered from the bed.

The witch swallowed hard and began to quote the passage. "A vampire whose blood has been poisoned by the venomous fangs of an ancient one may only be cured by one thing: the blood of his or her creator."

"Katherine," Elena whispered helplessly. "Will you do it?"

Katherine took a moment to eye the weary expressions around the room, and then without pause, she dragged a fingernail down her wrist and placed it at Damon's mouth. She pressed her hand against his head and forced him to drink as the others watched on in shocked silence. After a few moments, she took her arm away. "There," she said softly, backing up. "The poison should leave his system. But that doesn't mean that Klaus doesn't still have control of him."

Damon sat up slowly, flinching, as the burning in his body finally began to vanish. He locked eyes with Katherine. "Thank you."

Katherine nodded at him as a door slammed downstairs, indicating Rose's return.

"We'll go," Stefan told Elena. As their eyes met, a slight shock passed through them. "Help him," he said quietly, before indicating to Bonnie and Katherine that it was time to leave. "Yell if you need help."

The three of them left the room, the door shutting quietly behind them, leaving Elena and Damon alone.

Damon had his head in his hands, a series of tremors wracking his body. When she touched his arm, he slowly lifted his head and looked at her. "I'm sorry, Elena – for anything I've ever done to hurt you, your family, or your friends. God, you don't know how sorry I am."

"I know, Damon. It's okay." She began to lightly stroke his arm. God, his skin was so cold. He needed blood, but with his current state of mind, she was afraid to bring it up.

His lip quivered. "It's not, Elena. Stefan may have pushed me over the edge, but he didn't make me continue my century and a half rampage."

Elena touched his cheek. "You were never that person, Damon. It was your way of hiding. You were badly wronged in 1864, by your father, your brother – by Katherine. But it's okay now because you've become that person you were before you turned. It's taken a while to chip away the layers of hatred, but you're here, absolutely exposed, baring your soul." She leaned closer to him.

"I don't have soul," he said bitterly, voice still rough from the screaming and sobbing he had done.

Elena placed her hand over his chest. "You do, Damon. I can feel it join with mine." She leaned forward and kissed his lips, and then gathered him into her arms. "Rest for awhile," she murmured, still feeling the chill of his skin, "I'm going to run you a bath soon."

The words had barely left her mouth when his head dropped against her shoulder. She gazed at him, and only one thing ran through her mind as she stroked his hair: how was she ever going to save him?