Damon opened his eyes and found himself lying down on the ground next to the tub. He looked up and saw her hand dangling over the dark wood that framed the tub. Her fingers were wet with a mixture of water and blood and so was his face. Another convulsion of her body caused more water to spill over.
'I blacked out, shit I blacked out...' Before he could stand up, he already had a pretty good idea what he would find.
Snow White in her glass coffin couldn't have looked much different than Elena, whose body floated angel-like under the water surface. The long dark strands of hair accented her beautiful light skin. She was turned slightly away from him. Only her right arm was pointed in his direction and still seemed to offer to feed from it. Her eyes were looking into the depths of nothingness.
One more drop went from her hand to the ground before Damon could free himself from the shock that this picture was giving him. He pulled her out of the tub as fast as his vamp speed would allow him to and put her on the ground to perform CPR.
Finally she moved but Damon knew it was not life which was forced back into her, it was death.
With tears in his eyes and an out-freaked voice he furiously whined "No, don't do this to me Elena...I didn't want this to happen to you..."
Shivering Elena sat up and looked down on herself.
"I blacked out!" she said and put her hand to her mouth, remembering that she wasn't supposed to say anything. "Oh no. I...I just ruined Bonnies spell."
"Elena..."
"Stefan will find me now"
"Elena, you..."
"He will kill everyone"
Losing patience he grabbed her still naked body and pulled her close to him.
"Elena, listen … you ...you drowned. You are in transition."
Suddenly she became very stiff. Her face was pressed against his bare chest so he couldn't see it. He first thought she started to cry, but when she pushed herself away from him, he saw something much worse. Hysterically she smiled and soon she she was laughing heartily.
"Seriously? I drowned? In the tub over there?" Anger was following "I mean … Klaus killed me once but I survived it. Stefan tries to kill me. A whole bunch of magic creatures tried to kill me, I almost died freezing to death hours ago or something...and then I'm accidentally drowning in the tub that was supposed to save my life from freezing? What kind of joke is this?..." Finally she stopped. Stopped to show any emotion, any movement at all, like a robot which gets its batteries taken out.
He put her gently back on the couch with a blanket, and combed through the wardrobe to find something to wear for the both of them.
"We are going back. You need to make up your mind about becoming a vampire or … or leaving everything behind." He knew she could hear him, even if she was in this kind of state.
He first put some clothes on her, which was odd. First of all, because his stuff was not fitting her very well, too big and all. And second, he had to pretend he was modest. Right now he even was, just because she was so damaged, and that really didn't put him in the mood, but he usually wasn't that way and he definitely was not used to care for somebody so intimately.
When he was dressed and had packed the important belongings, (He even went out again, with a better shield this time around, to get the stupid ring.) he kneeled down next to her.
"Hey Sweety, time to go. Are you ready?" His sweet voice made his way into her soul, but her body denied to answer. Damon was shocked to the core himself. He didn't dare to think about the recent events. Too much had happened. He was whole again and almost living, and she was sitting there in pieces and dead.
He softly picked her up bridal-style and opened the Portal. Darkness covered the room once more, and then they were back in the woods close by the US-129 N/Tapoco Rd and Lake Santeetlah, heading in the direction of Knoxville Tennessee.
In a total surprise, an ax found its way into his spine, the minute he had solid ground under his feet. His body smashed into the dirt, burying Elena under him.
"Don't worry Damon, by the time you get married it'll be all healed up." Katherine chuckled and pulled Elena out from beneath him.
"Well see you later I guess." she waved at Damon and bashed Elenas rigid body into the back of her black Ford Van. Without being able to do anything about it, he had to watch how the backlights of this despiteful and kidnapping vehicle were becoming smaller and smaller till they were gone.
Half an hour later he managed to get rid of the vervain-spiced ax in his back. With a roar of unbelievable rage he flung it deep into a tree.
The tires of his car were flat. Katherine took care of that. She just didn't count in, how much he loved his car and that he was prepared for such an occasion. He had bought special self repairing tires. And all he needed to do now was to lift up each tire of the car and push a special button on his console. Then the air-pressure would be rebuilt and the tacky, viscous coating on the inside of the tires would be able to repair the damage. A nail or something small wouldn't cause such time and effort, but since she used a bigger knife he had to do deal with the inconvenience.
'She died. I can't believe I let her die after all we've been through. She will hate me for turning her into a vampire. And I can't be even sure that she will become one. What if she doesn't want to, or even worse, she gives in and can't turn because they don't let her... I really need to kill somebody right now!'
When everything was fixed he jumped into his car and drove after her without knowing where to go.
The Van stopped only an hour later. Elena, getting out of the car, noticed that she was still in the National Forest, where she had been kidnapped. But somebody seemed to had liked the idea of placing an expensive looking mansion into the wilderness. The twilight of the evening immersed the house into a gruesome location to be.
Katherine pushed her towards the main entry. When they entered the villa, Elena started to feel slightly sick. She was led in one of the bigger rooms upstairs, without even seeing a glimpse of Stefan.
She got locked in and left alone, so she thought. But then a familiar looking girl looked out of the other door what seemed to be the bathroom door. Bonnie was by her side in no time.
At first they both just cried and held each other. After a while, Bonnie dared to ask Elena, if she would mind to share her memories with her. She could see that Elena couldn't talk about it, but a little mind to mind memory exchange might be ok with her. Elena nodded and closed her eyes. Forehead attached to forehead they were sitting on the unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room.
Elena saw pictures how Caroline took care of protecting Jeremy and both of them were somewhere in Mystic Falls. She saw that nobody could see the house they were in, because Bonnie had used magic that camouflaged it. But one time Stefan came so close that Bonnie had to draw all attention on herself and was taken away in the process.
She had to follow Stefan the whole way out here and so had her father. Stefan had been very close to finding Damon's car for some days already, thanks to some hired vampires. They had arrived here only 2 hours ago. The owner of the mansion and Bonnie's Dad were misused as living blood-bags.
When Bonnie finished to look into Elena's past two days, she grabbed her hand and had a horrified expression on her face.
"You are in transition?" Elena again just nodded.
"Why do I not feel it, when I touch you? I only feel that you are sick." Bonnie could say by her tells that she didn't care about it right now.
"You need to drink blood if you are in transition." No reaction from Elena's side. A small uncomfortable silence was all that Bonnie got, before she lifted hesitantly her wrist to Elena's mouth.
"Common Elena, you have to, please."
Elena took her wrist. Thinking for at least 10 seconds about what she should do, she eventually bit down on it.
"Aaaw, can you at least use your Vampire canines? Doing it without really hurts bad."
"I can't. For whatever reason I don't have them." she talked back very sullen and turned to the side very depressed and tired.
Bonnie was about to think that it has to be a mistake that Elena was in transition, when suddenly blood came out of Elenas eyes like tears and fell down into her lap.