Chapter 14

Becca gasped in air around the excruciating pain of a stake in her heart as her body gradually restored itself from its temporary state of dessication. There was just one slight problem. The paralyzation spell was still in effect, so Becca couldn't move to extract the stake and it was hard to gather enough power to break the spell as long as a piece of wood was lodged in her heart. Her body was forcing the stake out as it healed itself, but that was one agonizing fraction of an inch at a time. She needed that stake out now, she thought in frustration as she struggled against the spell that kept her immobile. For several minutes, Becca just lay there, unable to move, an unfamiliar feeling of weakness and helplessness filling her. She hadn't felt anything like it since the moment when she knew Klaus had defeated her and was going to kill her, but luckily there was no Klaus and no dagger this time. She felt strength gradually returning to her limbs despite the stake in her body, and finally she was able to tear her right arm through the spell that held her immobile. A second later, it was as though a massive weight lifted off her entire body as the spell gave way. Becca could move again.

She closed her eyes and maneuvered her hands to the stake, jerking the wood up and out of her body. She shook herself a little, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the feeling of death, as she sat up. One glance around her only made Becca more furious at the entire situation. Not only had William staked her – and he really should know better – but he had locked her in a goddamn cage.

She got to her knees and crawled to the bars of the cage, only to encounter an invisible barrier of some kind. Another spell. She growled softly. She was hungry, tired, and she still stank of death, but of course there was no blood in her cage, and no prospect for any until she had broken out of there. She smashed a fist into the spell, aware that she wasn't even close to full strength. The spell held, and Becca sighed. She was having a really bad day. She channeled her power and struck again.

•••••

Damon was pacing impatiently beside Alaric's car, waiting for their reinforcements to arrive, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gasped as the excruciating pain drove him to his knees, and he found himself clutching at where his heart would be (if he had one, of course).

Ric suddenly appeared around the side of the car, staring at him with concern. "Damon, what happened? Are you okay?"

Damon forced in a deep breath and looked up at Ric. He smiled through the pain. "I'm fine. Becca's alive." He started to try to stand up and thought better of it. "Although I think she still has a stake in her heart."

Ric nodded with understanding. "This is your blood bond again, isn't it? That seems a bit inconvenient."

Damon shook his head. "Nah, imagine it during sex." He grinned devilishly at Ric.

Ric groaned. "TMI, Damon."

Damon wasn't quite ready to drop the conversation. It was a good distraction from the pain, and it was fun to watch Ric get flustered. "You don't want to picture us having sex?"

"No, I really don't."

"Oh, come on. We're hot."

"Just shut up, okay?"

Yep, Ric's heart rate had definitely sped up. Damon's grin widened, although he finally did shut up (having achieved his goal). He stayed on his knees, waiting for the pain to subside. Surely it wouldn't take long for Becca to get the stake out of her heart, would it? But Damon welcomed the pain because it told him that Becca was back among the living undead. Relief washed through him as he realized that this meant that their enemies didn't have a dagger.

Minutes later, the pain was supplanted by a white hot fury, and Damon couldn't help but smile at that. That was his girl. He got to his feet, one hand braced on Ric's car as he gave his friend an update. "No more stake, and she's pissed."

He could feel the fury building and then finally, minutes later, a sense of relief, of freedom. Becca had broken out of whatever prison they had put her in – Damon was almost certain of it. But that created a new set of potential problems. He turned to Ric, who had remained silent, watching him. "Sorry, can't wait any more."

Ric looked at him with total incomprehension. "Why on earth not?"

"Becca is free, but she won't know that you got me out."

"How do you know that?"

Damon rolled his eyes. Sometimes Ric could be a little slow. "The blood bond, Ric."

"Damon . . ."

Damon cut off whatever argument his friend was intending to make. "I have to find her before she wastes time looking for me or runs into another trap. You can stay here if you want."

Ric shook his head. "Let me just text Amaya and Caroline. They should be here any minute."

Damon ignored him, turning and heading back toward the building at a slow jog. He heard Ric curse behind him, but he left his friend to catch up on his own. It was a short trip to the door of the building, and Damon spared a quick glance for the two dead vampires still lying by the door, more aware of them than he had been when Ric had dragged him out of there. He entered the building carefully, keeping utterly silent. He had a strong suspicion that the vampire who had captured him, the one in charge, was old and powerful, so it would be better to avoid an encounter with him if at all possible, especially since Damon knew he was still at much less than full strength. He would figure something out if he had to fight, though. He always figured something out.

Damon was only a quarter of the way down the wide hallway when one of the doors farther down was suddenly flung open. He flattened himself uselessly against the wall, suddenly wishing that invisibility was one of his abilities as a vampire. It turned out not to matter, though, because the figure that came through the door was Becca. Her blond hair was wild, her clothes were messy and spotted with blood, and there was a crazy glint in her eyes that Damon wasn't sure he had ever seen before, even during the worst of their battle against Klaus. He stepped away from the wall without the slightest hesitation anyway, choking out her name. With a little cry, she flew down the hallway and into his arms, and he clutched her to him desperately. Her body was solid against his, and her arms closed around him with painful strength – and he didn't care, because she was back in his arms.

She spoke first, a whisper into his chest. "You are okay. I was afraid, once they had me . . ."

Damon cut her off. "I felt you die." A shudder ran through him. "I felt you die, Becca."

"I know, and I am sorry." She looked up at him with an apology in her dark eyes, and Damon wondered what she had to be sorry for. None of this was her fault. But he didn't ask her what she meant, focusing on the feeling of her slight body against his.

It had become a familiar feeling, but in that moment, holding her again meant everything to Damon. He could feel that the bond between them was as strong as ever, and a wave of overwhelming relief washed over him. He hadn't lost her. He buried his face in her crazy hair and just tightened his grip on her. His voice was rough, barely audible. "All that matters is that you're alive."

Becca shifted in his arms then and stretched up to kiss him. It was a passionate, desperate kiss that Damon returned in full. He knew from her kiss that Becca was as relieved to find him safe and okay as he was to have her back in his arms where she belonged.

Their kiss was interrupted a moment later when Ric cleared his throat from behind him. "Uh, guys? We should probably get out of here."

As Damon reluctantly withdrew his lips from Becca's, he heard another voice, this time from further down the hallway. It dripped with sarcasm. "Isn't this a touching reunion? But I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave." It was the vampire who had held him captive.

•••••

Becca turned around at the sound of William's voice, pulling away from Damon. This was good, she thought. William needed to die, and she would be happy to do the honors. The worst of her fury had dissipated at the sight of Damon standing in that hallway, alive and well, although she still felt a slow burn of anger at everything William had done to both of them. She had been terrified that he would kill Damon as soon as he had her imprisoned, and she had been horribly aware that she had failed to even help Damon before being captured herself. She knew that it had to have been Ric who got Damon free, and not for the first time, she blessed their friend's resourcefulness.

But even as Becca began planning William's death, he was joined in the hallway by two other vampires and a woman whom she could only assume to be a witch. Becca hesitated. She knew she could take William, even at less than full strength, but she wasn't sure how Damon was feeling right now. And she wasn't at all certain that she could both protect him and Ric and kill a vampire who had walked the earth for almost as many years as she had. She realized then that she was going to have to try, though. She and Damon could run, as much as it would kill her to do so, but Ric would never get away, and she wasn't about to leave him behind.

She felt Damon step up beside her, and she knew with certainty that he was prepared to fight, too. Unfortunately, she had no idea how strong the two vampires with William were, and no idea if Damon would be able to match one, let alone both, of them after everything he had been through. And the witch was a dangerous wildcard who could decide the entire fight. Becca had fought through two powerful spells already in getting out of that cage, and if this witch had cast those, she had a feeling that they were in serious trouble.

As Becca was trying to calculate their odds, she saw William's hand begin to move. Before she could react, Damon was diving in front of her, and she cried out his name in horror as she realized what he had done. William had thrown another small handful of ash, undoubtedly linked to a spell, and Damon had just intercepted the ash and the magic meant for her. Becca felt a wave of terror at the thought of what a spell meant to stop an Original might do to Damon, but a second later, he was rolling smoothly to his feet, seemingly unharmed. He smirked, looking pleased with himself. "I guess your ash doesn't work on a regular little vampire like me."

Becca attacked William immediately, wanting to take full advantage of the success of one of Damon's characteristic crazy gambles. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Damon engage with one of the other vampires, and she heard a whistling sound followed by a thud and a groan. She smiled at the thought of Ric's fondness for elaborate weapons, suspecting that her friend had just fired a stake into the remaining vampire's heart – Ric probably had at least one wrist launcher concealed under his sleeves and his aim had become very, very good. They might be outgunned, but her friends were used to being the underdogs, after all. Hell, they had even found a way to stop her brother, Klaus, and his hybrids.

Becca easily shook off an attempt at an aneurysm spell from the witch. She hit William hard, sending the other vampire flying into the wall, and quickly closed her fingers around his throat. Her words were a growl. "You should have known better than to attack me."

But she had to strain more than she should have to keep William penned to the wall, and he actually laughed when she had to slam him back with her left hand when he almost broke free. "Feeling a little weak, Rebecca?"

"Strong enough to kill you." But before Becca could finish off the other vampire, she heard Damon cry out behind her, and she realized that the witch had wisely changed her strategy to attack the more vulnerable target. Damon was on the ground, clutching his head, and Becca could only watch as the vampire that Damon had been fighting kicked him hard, sending him flying twenty feet down the hallway. The witch hadn't stopped her spell either, and Becca could feel Damon's agony as a throbbing in her own head. She knew he was hanging onto consciousness through sheer stubborn willpower as his brain continued to explode with wave after wave of pain, but she had to ignore his suffering because she knew she couldn't afford to let her attention slip too far from a dangerous vampire like William.

With Damon still down, the unoccupied vampire turned his attention to Ric. Unfortunately, Ric seemed to be out of tricks, and stakes, because the vampire drove him into the wall across from where Becca had trapped William. Out of the corner of her eye, Becca could see Ric struggling fruitlessly against the much greater strength of the vampire.

Furious and aware that her friends needed her help, Becca began to dig her hand into William's body, aiming for his heart. He stopped her, though, gasping out the words. "Should we kill your friends in front of you, Rebecca? Maybe the human first, then your pet vampire? Are you willing to trade their lives for mine?"

Becca stopped at that because she was not, in fact, willing to make that trade. But then the equation changed entirely with the unexpected (at least to her) arrival of reinforcements. She saw a blond streak that she recognized as Caroline tackle the vampire pinning Ric to the wall, and Amaya was there as well with a spell that staggered the other witch, forcing her to drop the spell that was torturing Damon. Becca tilted her head and grinned at William. "I have other friends, too." And with those words, she drove her hand deep into the other vampire's body until she felt his heart beating in her hand. With one quick pull, she tore his heart from his chest and watched him die.

Caroline had buried a stake in the other vampire's chest, and as Becca turned around, she saw that William's witch was backing against a wall, hands up in a gesture of surrender. Ric was climbing to his feet with a groan, but Becca was suddenly worried that Damon had stayed down. That was unusual enough that she flashed over to his side. Her voice was quiet with worry as she touched his shoulder. "Damon?"

His breathing was ragged, and she could see and feel it as he gathered himself. But a moment later his words reassured her. "I fucking hate that spell."

Becca couldn't help but smile as she gave his shoulder another reassuring stroke. The words reminded her that she still had a witch to deal with, however. William might have been the mastermind, but the witch had played an integral role in the entire operation – which meant that she had hurt Damon more than once. She got to her feet and flashed back over to where the witch had stayed still, eyes wide, against the wall.

Becca had every intention of snapping the woman's neck, but Amaya stepped forward. "Becca, stop."

Becca turned to face the witch that she knew and raised an eyebrow. She tamped down her annoyance at Amaya's tone, aware that the woman deserved some consideration for coming to their aid. "Why? She is the enemy."

Amaya kept her head high and her tone level. "We witches will deal with our own." At Becca's skeptical look, she continued. "We have been negotiating a deal with Elijah – it's part of why I'm here in Mystic Falls."

"Elijah has not mentioned anything."

Amaya shook her head. "It's not final yet," she admitted. "But please – let me deal with her."

Ric stepped forward then, too. "She's human, Becca. You can't kill her. Let Amaya handle it." A moment later, he added, "Besides, she might know something useful."

Becca glared at her friend, angry that he was taking the witch's side. She didn't understand what the woman being human had to do with anything. Becca killed her enemies, regardless of species. This woman had participated in a plot to kidnap both Damon and herself, and she had hurt Damon badly more than once. She shook her head. "She should die." Caroline was looking back and forth, obviously uncomfortable with the disagreement among her friends. Damon was still on his hands and knees further down the hallway, but Becca could see his bright blue eyes taking everything in. She couldn't read his expression, but she thought that he would support her if it came to that.

"Please, Becca," Ric repeated.

Becca gave her friend a long look. She respected Ric, and she didn't want to fight with him. "Fine. Get her out of here before I change my mind."

Amaya nodded. "Thank you."

Becca turned away and flashed back down the hall to Damon, still not certain she had made the right decision. She thought that she should move away before she changed her mind and snapped a neck.

Caroline followed her down the hall. "Now that that's settled – why didn't you call me? I had to hear about your rescue plan from Ric – and after it was already under way. At least I got here in time to save the day."

Becca stared at the blond vampire, confused. Beside her, Damon collapsed back to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter. Always the quick thinker, he choked out a defense of her between convulsions. "We didn't . . . call . . . Stefan . . . at all." As always, the beautiful sound of Damon's laugh brought a smile to Becca's face, and she felt her own laughter bubbling up.

Caroline stared at them both. "Well in that case. But next time, you better call me first."

Between giggles, Becca smiled at the younger vampire who was her friend. "I will remember." She reached down to help a still chuckling Damon to his feet. It was past time to get him home.

A/N: I hope everyone could follow the fight scene - that was a complicated one with so many players involved. Most of the action scenes I've written have been a lot simpler. As always thanks for reading and double thanks if you review!