author's notes: this took me a while longer, because real life and other stories are crowding my time. i hope you enjoy the new chapter. super-special thanks to everyone loving/commenting/reviewing.
characters: Elena, Damon, Amelia (OC), Stefan, Bonnie, Jenna, Alaric, Matt, Mayor Lockwood
setting: AU from 1x14 - Fool Me Once onward
disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination
MALUM DISCORDIAE;;
chapter four
"Hush," she whispers in his ear softly, her breath a wave of her scent against his skin. He feels her warm hand as it rests on his cheek, slides down over the two delicate puncture marks in his neck, and comes to rest on his chest, just above where his heart is beating at a very slow pace. He doesn't know where he is, but it doesn't matter, not with her touch on him, with her scent surrounding him; he doesn't even need to see her if he can have this for an eternity.
"Katherine?" a voice says, and he realises belatedly that it's his own. It cuts through the thick silence like a sharpened sword.
Her laugh is infectious and her voice is the way it has always been; it rings true in his eardrums, settling in his chest like a thunderstorm. He'll never grow tired of that sound.
"No, silly," she answers, and settles her body closer up to his. It feels warm. "It's me."
It can't be.
It can't possibly be her. Not here. Not in this bed, not in this period of his lifetime. He's human, yet she's human too. Yet...
"Elena," he iterates, not just a voice this time. He opens his eyes slowly, and she's there beside him, clear as day, her long hair thrown back over her shoulders. He wonders why she's here with him, willingly, now, here. Part of him wants to ask her, but he knows he shouldn't try to break the solitary silence again. He's content with just lying here. There's little else for him to do but lie and wait.
Damon wakes – again, or for the first time, he's not sure – in another bed; he recognises it as his own this time. He moves his head carefully; he'd noticed before how every little movement hurt him and cost him energy. Strangely, right now, he feels like himself again. His body feels its normal temperature, his muscles don't hurt anymore. And after a few more seconds, he even notices he's hungry.
Something stirs on the bed next to him.
He turns his head fast, only to see Amelia asleep beside him, facing him. He reaches a hand over, and pushes a strand of her hair from her face, brushing it behind her ear carefully. Amelia doesn't seem to notice, and if she does she doesn't respond to it. Damon figures she's probably tired after taking care of him and Stefan, after giving up so much blood. He knows that once she wakes to see him better, she'll be glad she ever made the sacrifice. She'll find it was a small price to pay.
He doesn't thank her, not now, nor will he later, but he's grateful. He trusts she knows he's not the kind to say such things out loud.
When he gets up from the bed he fears that he might find himself dizzy again, or that some part of the illness will have survived, but he finds no indication it has. He wonders why that is, why suddenly he's better. Vampire blood can be thoroughly healing for humans, but for vampires it just provided a temporary thrill ride. Is Amelia that powerful that she can heal vampires too? Heal Stefan and him from some mystery disease? He's never openly asked her how old she is, because he knows she'd only provide him with silence, but sometimes, quite a few times since she found her way back into his life, he can't help but wonder.
She'd been right when she first walked into this room; neither Stefan or Damon have ever called for her help in the past one hundred and fifty years, and yet, right now, it still seems like she's always been there for them. He thinks he's never met anyone quite like her, a selfless vampire no less, adaptable to every situation, never not-thinking, always alert. She must be very old indeed.
She wakes when she hears someone rumbling in the kitchen downstairs. Elena looks at Stefan but he's still unconscious, has been since she'd fed him Amelia's blood last night. Stefan doesn't look much better though, so she can't help but wonder if the blood is helping at all. She rubs her eyes wearily and stretches, strolling towards the bathroom on unsteady legs. She shouldn't have allowed herself to sleep, or she should have slept longer. This in-between state feels worse than being tired.
The mirror in the bathroom agrees with her; she looks awful. She tries her best to fix that with some water, brushes her teeth and puts on some fresh clothes. On the first floor she notices Damon's bedroom door is open, but she doesn't feel like going inside. His sparkling personality hadn't been jaded by the illness, or so she'd heard from Amelia. She walks through the house aimlessly at first, the rays of sunlight falling in through the windows a little too bright for her still sleepy eyes.
"Amelia?" she asks when she walks into the kitchen, her jaw cracking when she yawns. The refrigerator is open, the person behind the door blocked from her sight. When the door closes, she notices it's not Amelia at all. It's Damon. "Oh, it's you," she averts her eyes, and walks over to the coffee machine; she's in desperate need of some caffeine.
"Morning to you too, princess," Damon says, raising both his eyebrows smugly. He'd been looking for some human blood, but apparently his luck isn't all-inclusive on this sunny day; he'll have to make do with the crap they've been feeding him for the past few days. "Amelia's resting," he explains, and swallows down a big gulp of blood. "She gave a lot of blood."
Elena crosses her arms over her chest after she's made the coffee, and turns to Damon. She looks at him for a few seconds, watching him drink. "You're feeling better." She doesn't make it a question.
"Yup, never thought I'd say this, but this has never tasted better." He jiggles the ceramic cup in front of him. It's good to be back. Though he would kill for some decent blood right about now. "I guess you never do know what you have until it's gone," he grimaces. Elena doesn't relent from staring at him. How come Damon is better? "Lighten up, sunshine, I'm all better." Damon shrugs. "Miss me?"
"Don't flatter yourself." Elena rolls her eyes, and turns around, watching the coffee machine steaming, drop by drop filling the glass bowl underneath it. "Stefan's still not better," she says, saying it aloud for the first time, giving shape to her worst nightmare. What if he dies? What if Amelia's blood didn't work for him? What if he was already too sick to fight off the disease?
"You should feed him something human," Damon says, reluctantly emptying his cup now filled with some final sips of blood. He needs something human, or before long he'll start suffering from some psychosomatic illness telling him only human blood sustains him. "That'll have him better in no time."
"I'm not going to give him something he doesn't want," Elena answers, a little too harsh maybe. It's one thing for her to fear it, it's another for Damon to believe it too. It becomes too real if he believes it too. Stefan won't die. Stefan can't die. If he dies, part of her will go with him. And what's the use of living a half-life?
"Your funeral," Damon shrugs. "Or you know, his."
"How can you be so callous?" Elena turns around, her long hair swivelling around her. Damon thinks that it does so in a way that Katherine's never has. It could do that, conceivably, in his imagination. Or his dreams. "Stefan could die," Elena adds. Everything's about Stefan, Damon thinks, and everything he shares with him. First Katherine, now Elena. Even Amelia isn't entirely his.
"He's already dead," Damon says, and walks over to the sink. He comes dangerously close to Elena. Being her, she doesn't move an inch. She has Katherine's spunk. "And I'm not being callous, I'm being pessimistic," he tells her, face mere inches away from hers. It pains some elusive part of him to see tears in her eyes, and to know that she's already shed endless streams of them over his brother. "Or in this case, realistic."
Elena casts down her eyes and tries to catch her breath; her distress is making it hard for her to breathe at all. She hasn't been breathing properly for days, her heart rate heightened, but she knows that if she just keeps hanging on, for a little while longer, she might be able to see Stefan through this. In a way, she hopes that her strength will give him strength.
"Give him this," Damon's voice sounds from further away again; lost in thought she hadn't noticed that he'd moved away, nor had she previously seen that he'd grabbed Stefan a cup as well. She knows that part of him has to care to do that; she just wishes she'd see it more often, and maybe a little bit more outspoken. "It won't do much," Damon adds, but Elena is beyond caring. Even if she has to feed him her own blood through an IV, she'll do it.
Without another word, or another glance at Damon, Elena grabs the mug from the kitchen counter, and retraces her footsteps through the house. This time she doesn't notice the sun, the faint dust flecks dancing in it, the soundless thumps her feet make on the stairs and the hallway floor. The only thing she allows herself to see is Amelia on Damon's bed, and she regards the older vampire from the hallway for long moments, she's not sure how long. Amelia did everything she could, Elena thinks, she won't blame her for Stefan still not being better. Amelia's blood already flowed through Damon's veins long before he got sick. Katherine's blood flowed through Stefan's.
The straw in the cup sways sluggishly from one side the other as she ascends the second staircase to Stefan's room. He's just waking up when she sits down carefully by this side; he moans, and a shiver runs through his body. "Hush," she says, and places a hand on his forehead. He's still burning up.
Downstairs, Elena's choice in words doesn't pass Damon by unnoticed.
"Katherine?" Stefan asks, and swallows hard.
"No, silly," Elena says. How can he mistake her for Katherine? She knows he's sick, and that he's not fully conscious, but she hates hearing the question coming from him. "It's me," she says, and places her hand on his chest, the stillness underneath the palm of her hand something she's already used to. "You need to drink this," she adds, and places the straw near his lips.
"No—" Stefan turns away from the mere smell of blood; it makes him queasy just thinking about it. The sheets curl around his legs.
"Stefan." Elena puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to get him to lie on his back again. "You need to drink this. Please, you need your strength." Stefan shakes his head, and closes his eyes. Elena tugs at him again, succeeding where really she shouldn't have been able too, but Stefan is growing weaker by the second. But one swing of his arm – because he doesn't want to turn in the bed, and he certainly doesn't want to drink – and he hits Elena, sending her crashing to the ground, cup of blood and all. Half of the blood spills out over the carpet, half over Elena's pants.
And then suddenly, Stefan is trashing violently in the bed.
"Damon!" she shouts, and he's there in the room with her before she's called out his name. "He's hallucinating," she explains while Damon makes his way over to his brother. "He thinks I'm Katherine."
"Cool." Damon smirks, and grabs one of Stefan's arms, trying to pin him down. Stefan hits Damon in the jaw, harder than he should have been able to, and throws Damon off. "Okay, not cool," Damon gets up fast again, and makes another attempt at restraining his brother. It's almost as if Amelia's blood has given him momentary strength. Too much strength for Damon to handle alone. "MEL!" he shouts.
Elena hasn't finished blinking or Amelia is in the room with them as well. She runs over to Stefan, throwing him down on his back, straddling him around his hips. "Stefan, calm down!" she says strongly, but all Stefan does is realise he can't move anymore. Amelia's blood is makes him strong, but Amelia is still stronger. "Stefan," Amelia leans in to look Stefan in the eyes. "Calm down," she tries to compel him, but Stefan doesn't cease moving.
"It's no use, there's vervain in his system," Damon says, wondering briefly if during any of the previous days he'd lost control like this. He doesn't remember, but he can't exclude the possibility.
Then suddenly, without any warning, Stefan calms down, and passes out again. Amelia waits a few seconds to see if he's not faking, then gets off him, but stays close to the bed just in case.
"I don't understand why he's not getting better," Elena says, remaining seated on the floor. It's not fair in any case. No one, except maybe Amelia, would miss Damon if this thing killed him. Elena would lose everything. "It can't just be his diet."
"Always told him it would do him in," Damon says, and sits down on Stefan's desk, his legs dangling back and forth under it. Amelia and Elena both throw him a glance that tells him that from now on he'd better only open his mouth when he has something useful to say.
"You've been on animal blood for several days too," Amelia says, and crosses her arms over her chest. What is she missing? What is she not seeing? What makes Stefan and Damon so different that her blood can't help Stefan? "There's no reason why Stefan shouldn't be better by now."
"Sure there is," Damon says. Amelia and Elena exchange glances, then looks at Damon.
"Care to enlighten us?" Elena says, putting every ounce of strength she has left in not making it sound angry or spiteful. Why should Damon be the one who survives? What has he ever done to deserve another chance?
Damon sighs. "I think, or I know, it's your blood that created me," he tells Amelia. She frowns at him in return, mulling over Damon's words in her mind. "And now you cured me," Damon adds. Is he really the only one who sees? If it's not Stefan's diet, or his exposure to the poison – which is not the way poisons tend to work anyhow – the only factor that is different between Stefan and Damon is who created them.
"You think—?" Amelia starts.
"No," Elena interrupts, and gets up from the ground. This can't be real. This can't be happening. She's the one Stefan loves. She's the one that loves him. She's the one that's been taking care of him these past two days. There's no way in hell that Katherine is the solution to this. "You're saying we need Katherine. And I'm telling you now, there is no way she's touching him."
Bonnie is not the kind of girl that works well under pressure. So when Elena calls her that night, her voice hoarse from God knows what, asking her to find a spell that can heal people, or make people feel better, or protect them, she rushes through her grandmother's books without really looking at all the titles of the spells. What's going on? Elena had done her best to explain, tears and a deeper distress sounding through in her voice, about how Stefan got poisoned, and about there being no cure.
Elena hadn't said it in so many words, but Bonnie knows that if she doesn't come up with something, Stefan will die, or if he doesn't now, he will perish sooner rather than later. The rush she puts herself through is no good for her, but this is Elena, her best friend, someone she would lay her life down for, who has already lost so much this year. She couldn't bear to see her hurt like that again, even if Stefan is a vampire.
When Elena opens the door for her several hours later, Bonnie is horrified by what she sees. There are dark circles under Elena's eyes, her hair is a mess, and every spark has gone from her eyes. She looks defeated. She looks much the same way she did at the hospital, right after her parents' car accident, not knowing how she'd survived and feeling guilty that she had. She'd barely made it through that alive. How was she going to survive if Stefan died as well?
"Hey. I'm so glad you could make it," Elena says when she holds open the door for her friend; she barely manages the ghost of a smile. Bonnie hugs her, tight, and is reluctant to let go again. But it's Elena who moves back. "Did you find something?" she asks while walking into the living room, and sits down on the sofa.
"Maybe," Bonnie answers carefully. In truth, she's not sure what Elena is expecting her to do. Even if there was some way to cure people, Stefan was a vampire; spells like that probably won't have the same effect on him. "Aren't Damon and Amelia out to get a cure?" Bonnie asks, and settles down on the couch as well, putting her bag and books down on the coffee table.
"Yes," Elena answers, her eyes glazing over when she thinks back on the conversation she had with Amelia. She'd sent Damon out of the room, probably realising that he wouldn't have anything helpful to say, and had convinced her that finding Katherine was their best bet of curing Stefan. Elena didn't like the idea, but she knew that Amelia's concern lay primarily in getting Stefan better, not in how to get to that point. "But I'd rather you find a way then have— Katherine around Stefan."
"She's the vampire Damon was looking for in the tomb," Bonnie remembers.
Elena had already figured this might come up sooner or later, and so she'd brought the Katherine picture down from Stefan's room to show to Bonnie. Bonnie looks at her in confusion at first, but when she looks down at the picture – at first thinking it's just a photo of Elena – and then sees the name and year under it, her eyes snap up at Elena quickly. "Oh my God," are the only words she can find.
"Damon and Stefan's ex," Elena says, as if she's said it a thousand times before and is almost tired of repeating it. In truth, she's tired of just hearing the name. She's tired of a lot of things right now. "The vampire that created Stefan. Her blood is the cure." She'd give just about anything to not have to ask this of Bonnie, but she sees no other possible way.
Bonnie looks at her best friend, and understands. "You think he still has feelings for her."
"I don't know." Elena shakes her head. She's not sure of anything anymore. Her life had been turned upside down before, and she'd barely survived. The second time it happened, her love for Stefan had kept her strong. This time around, she doubts she can be that strong. "I mean, no, he doesn't," she says resolutely. She knows this, without the shadow of a doubt. Stefan doesn't love Katherine. He never had. He was tricked into loving her. "I just— I don't want Stefan to owe her anything." Elena straightens her shoulders. "What did you find?" she asks.
"It's a protection spell," Bonnie says, and grabs the book she'd found it in; Emily's Grimoire. It seemed to be the only book that had contained any useful spells. "But Elena, it won't cure him. If it works, it'll only make him suffer longer. I don't want to—"
"It's okay, Bonnie." Elena takes hold of her friend's hands, and squeezes them. "I just need some hope," she says, tears filling up her eyes. "I'm so close to losing it." She tries to take a breath, but it's too difficult again.
"Oh, Elena." Bonnie inches closer to Elena on the couch, and throws her arms around her. She holds her close, hoping that she conveys her care for Elena, and her love. Upstairs, Stefan lets out a shout, and falls into another restless night's sleep. In Bonnie's arms, Elena softly starts to cry. Bonnie hugs her tight, and holds onto her for dear life.
"Oh come on, there's no way you've never seen The Goonies," Jenna exclaims, and grabs her beer from the table. "The slick shoes line? I used to quote that every time I came close to talking about shoes." Jenna remembers she wanted the same James Bond-like shoes Data had made himself when she was younger. Alaric is looking at her funny when she brings his face into focus again. "I'll admit, I was a nerd."
"I'll drink to that," Alaric says, and takes his beer in hand as well. They both drink, to nerdhood. They're at the bar, munching on peanuts and drinking beer, going over their favourite childhood movies. He doesn't know how they always end up talking about movies, but he figures it's better than their conversations ending up at Isobel.
"Hey, Matt," Jenna calls over, Matt walking over to their side of the bar. "Two more beers, please," she says. She feels herself getting slightly drunk, but she doesn't see what harm one more beer can do. Anything to avoid having their conversation end up at Alaric's late wife again. And possibly Elena's birth mother. It's probably too big a coincidence to be the same Isobel, but the name makes her shiver nonetheless.
Mayor Lockwood joins them at the bar behind Jenna; his presence goes unnoticed by both of them.
"Here you go," Matt says, and hands Jenna and Alaric fresh beers. "Say, where's Elena been these past few days? I haven't seen her around." Part of him feels guilty that he hasn't talked to Elena in such a long time, but he likes the way things are going with Caroline; he doesn't want to do anything to mess that up.
"Over at Stefan's," Jenna says. "Damon and him are down with some nasty flu-bug, and she's taking care of them."
Alaric looks at Jenna, but doesn't speak. It's the first he's heard of Damon and Stefan being sick. He doubts that's even the truth of the matter. Vampires don't get sick, they don't even so much as sneeze. He knows he should feel worried about Elena, alone in a house with at least one of the more vicious vampires he's met. But he doesn't know what to think of Stefan Salvatore, the younger brother.
"Sounds like Elena," Matt concludes, and goes back to work.
Unintentionally, Mayor Lockwood has overheard Jenna Sommers talking about Damon and Stefan Salvatore. It's a strange time in the year to be getting the flu, he thinks. And so suddenly; it was only two days ago that he'd seen both boys here in this bar, at least one of them having the time of his life.
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