author's notes: oh God, i'm so sorry for the long wait again! i had an exam and some papers to finish, and then my muse went and failed on me. it's back, for now, and i hope you all enjoy the new chapter! please read & review! - i added some pictures to my profile for visuals on Amelia - setting: right after 1x14, goes AU from there.

disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination

MALUM DISCORDIAE (apple of discord)

chapter 11: could not stop for death

Jeremy is still shaking all over, even when Uncle John walks him inside city hall, Alaric close behind them. His head is pounding; his uncle had told him that's an effect of the vampire blood in his system. It's curious to him how much his uncle seems to know about all that. As soon as they'd been found in the forest the sheriff and her deputies had tied Amelia up and gagged her before trying to move her. Part of him wanted to tell them that Amelia was already weak enough, but then he did stake her and she lived; he knows he can't predict anything from here. But he feels like Amelia had spared his life and Alaric's for good reason, not just to avoid persecution.

"You were very lucky, Jeremy," John says, and check his neck again, just to make sure he was fully healed. All he wants to do is go home and sleep, right after downing an entire bottle of aspirins, but he guesses his uncle won't have that just yet. "What were you doing out there?"

"Elena..." Jeremy starts, but then he's reminded of something Amelia had said. He hadn't believed her at the time, because his sorrow and anger over losing his sister were consuming him, but hadn't Amelia said that she hadn't touched Elena? No, it'd been Damon. Damon took his sister, Damon took Vicky. But he'd feel better if his uncle didn't learn about that.

"I'm not sure luck had much to do with it," Alaric interrupts. He'd had reason to stand by Jeremy last night; it was the opportune moment to get his own revenge on Damon. Damon might not admit it to himself, but anyone watching could see he cared for Amelia. He'd hoped to keep Damon down long enough to get his shot. But then Amelia had to intervene. He didn't care about her dying, she's just a vampire, but now Damon was on the loose. And he knows without a doubt that he'll be coming for both of them. Stefan had told him that once.

Just then two deputies drag Amelia in, her feet dragging over the floor.

"What are you going to do with her?" Alaric asks, sitting down in the major's office. He has no idea why they were brought here, or why they didn't just take him straight to the hospital, but he suspects that this town is still very much aware of its vampire population. His head is spinning; Amelia's alive, he's alive, and she'd allowed him to live. Of course he can't know if that's out of the goodness of her heart, or because she needed his blood.

John Gilbert stares at him for a few seconds, hesitating, he can see that, but ends up answering his question. "We'll get what we can from her," he says. "Then we'll kill her."

"How?" Alaric asks, putting a hand to his neck, but all he finds there is coagulated blood; he's already healed again. He stares at his ring; Amelia seemed to have known what it would do to him. Had Isobel known what it would do to him when she gave it to him all those years ago? "Jeremy staked her. She died. And then she just woke up again." He'd never seen anything like it; Amelia had seemed surprised herself. Whatever it was that brought her back, it wasn't anything that happened to many vampires.

"Yes," John Gilbert says, and stares off in the distance for a few seconds. Alaric would almost say that his curiosity was peeked. "We think fire should do the trick."

The burning hasn't stopped, the anger seething right underneath her skin, the rage, the violence she feels over what Damon did to her. He rejected her, chose some other vampire over her, and why? Because Amelia cared, because Amelia turned him, because Amelia was now dead. Damon was a pathetic excuse for a human, but an even worse excuse for a vampire. How could she ever have thought she could work it out? She tried, oh she really did try, but enough is enough. She's not going to take rejection from a man she created, she made strong, armed for this world of demons.

She rings the doorbell, the same doorbell, after having visited Elena's brother yesterday. The boy had bought right into her act, wholly believing that she was his sister-turned-vampire; humans were so easy to manipulate sometimes. There are footsteps in the hallway; she's confident that Jeremy won't be home – either Damon had got him in the forest, or he was burning Amelia's remains, - if he was smart that is.

As expected, it's the aunt that answers the door. "Elena," she frowns bemusedly, "What are you doing ringing the doorbell?"

"I left my keys at Stefan's," Katherine answers, slipping into another lie, a new lie, one even more convenient than the last one because it will grant her access to Saint Elena's house, to her life, to her family. All she had to do was be patient, and everything would work out in her favour.

"Well, come in," Jenna says, and opens the door for her further. Katherine feels the barrier lift, and steps into the Gilbert house like it was her own home.

No one rejects her.

"Bonnie, I can't leave them now," Elena whispers in the earpiece of her phone as she switches on the coffee maker; it's the third pot she's made in the past three hours and no one has touched it, but she doesn't know what else to do with herself. After realising exactly what Damon had said to them, Stefan had slumped down on the ground and hadn't moved a muscle since. Part of her wanted to go and talk to him, even to Damon, but she too knew the grief of losing a mother. She couldn't imagine how after so many years thinking of Amelia as his mother, Stefan remained whole.

"Are you sure Amelia's dead?" Bonnie's whispering now too, out of fear to speak too loudly and send Elena in some kind of hysterics. She remembers the vacant stare in her friend's eyes when she visited a virtually unscathed Elena in the hospital after her parents' accident. She remembers how dead-tired Elena had looked when Stefan was staring death in the face only a few days before. While it's true that she doesn't know Amelia as well as Stefan, Amelia had been someone Elena could count on in her time of need. And to be honest, Bonnie had taken a liking to her as well. "I mean... did Damon say what happened?"

"He hasn't said anything." Elena shakes her head and puts a hand to her forehead. She thought he'd been bad after finding out Katherine had no care for him, the very reason why Amelia had come here, but now, she wonders if Damon will ever be whole again. It's been clear from the start that Damon shared an even deeper bond with Amelia than Stefan did. If she didn't know any better – but then did she? – she'd almost call it love. She tiptoes into the living room, her cellphone pressed tightly to her ear, until she can see Damon and Stefan in the hallway. "They haven't even moved."

"Is there anything I can do?" Bonnie asks, even though she knows there's little meaning she can have in the lives of two vampires whose hearts have just been broken. She can't help but wonder though; who killed Amelia?

"No," Elena sighs and leans up against the door frame. "But thanks for asking." Deep down she wants to ask Bonnie to come over, to sit with her and talk, or just sit in silence, because the silence that's in the house now is laden with tears, with despair and sorrow and anguish, and being in the house as the only human almost physically hurts. Elena never could have guessed that losing Amelia would put Damon and Stefan in a state of shared grief. It would be almost beautiful if it wasn't so tragic.

Damon can hear everything Elena and Bonnie are saying, despite his focus being elsewhere and despite their whispers. Elena's lying when she says they haven't moved, but of course she can't know that. She can't know that inside him there's a storm raging, that he's never felt the presence of his own heart more than now. It's ironic that he should feel it now, now that Amelia is gone, now that he can find himself admitting how much he loved her and how much she'd always been right about Katherine. His chest aches – much more than his wounded leg – with an absence of something. The absence of Amelia's touch, even from his memory, the missing of the weight of her in his arms, her words against his skin. He guesses that if he closes his eyes he could probably dream about her, but that might only make the pain worse.

So he decides to do the exact opposite instead. He doesn't want to feel, doesn't want to think, doesn't want to see a goddamn thing. He does what Amelia would undoubtedly tell him not to do were she to know about it. He pushes a button embedded deeply in his vampire instincts, and ceases to feel anything at all.

"It's your fault, you know." Damon speaks his first words in hours and looks at Stefan. His brother turns his head and frowns. "She wouldn't have been here if you hadn't asked her to come." It's a low blow now that his brother is hurting too, and it's a desperate attempt to shift the blame to someone else. Part of him likes the idea that Amelia came for him and only him, but if she came for him, and just him, she now died because of him. And he can't take that too.

"Damon..." Stefan starts, but Damon doesn't allow him another word. He's up and walking, and up the stairs before Stefan has a chance to properly react. Stefan knows his brother well enough to realise that Damon was trying to shift the blame to anyone but himself, but this time he feels rebellion rippling through him violently, and he's standing before he knows it himself. He won't hear this from Damon; the brother who had always underappreciated Amelia, who'd always shied away from her when she talked about Katherine, who only accepted her presence when it served his own purposes. Now she's gone. He has just as much right to grief that loss.

"Stefan," Elena says, and is with him seconds later. He imagines she heard what Damon told him, and wants to prevent him from taking out his own pain on his brother now. But he has so many questions, needs to ask Damon so many things, about how and where and who, and most importantly, why. He also imagines Elena knows exactly what both of them are going through. Stefan looks at Elena, the tears in her eyes furiously held back, and can't find anything left in him that wants to go after his brother. He wraps his arms around Elena, and kisses her hair. "Give him some time," she says. "He's been through allot."

But Damon, upstairs, isn't thinking about his pain anymore. All he can see is Jeremy and that history teacher, standing over him and Amelia on the forest floor. He sees blood, and can smell it and suddenly his teeth hurt and he's reminded that there's a deep gashing wound in his leg. He needs to feed, soon, for it to stop hurting. But he knows no blood in this world will take away the real pain inside. He's the only one that can take care of that. And he will have his revenge. Soon.

It's dark where she is; not as dark as before, when death was creeping in on her from all sides and she saw no means of escape. Yet she had escaped, somehow; she'd been stabbed by a stake drenched in vervain, she'd dreamed of being with Damon one last time and she thought, she knew from the moment she got up from that forest floor and rushed towards him, it would be the last thing she'd ever do. She died in his arms, knowing he did love her. What more could she have asked for? What could be worth knowing more in this whole world? Dying in the knowledge that Damon had indeed loved her and she'd saved his life. That's all she wanted in this world; protect the ones she loved. It had been made her primary reason for continuing in this existence for such a long time.

Only now she's burning again, and there's a sharp sting somewhere in her neck, vehemently present. She opens her eyes, slowly adjusting to the dark. When she strains to move she can feel it; thick ropes around her wrists and elbows, arms stretched out next to her as if she's been crucified, the same ropes tight around her waist, ankles and knees. They burn where they touched her skin. Vervain, she thinks, and the tiny prickling sensation in her neck is gone. There's someone in the room with her, only inches away, heat radiating off him in waves, blood pumping underneath his skin. "Jonathan," she growls, momentarily strengthened by whatever he just injected her with.

"Amelia," he says and takes a few steps back. She can see him entirely then, he's not changed in all these years, safe maybe for a renewed fashion sense and a smug smile playing across his features that's never been there before. She wants to wipe it clean off his face, plant her fangs in his neck and drink until he drops dead at her feet. But she knows she won't; they have an understanding about these kind of things. He moves even further away from her and places the syringe on a side table holding other instruments. Amelia doesn't have to see it to know what it is.

"What did you do?" she asks, fearful of what he might answer. Has he poisoned her?

"Given you some blood."

Amelia frowns, because she can feel it then; fresh blood coursing through her veins, rushing to her heart to heal what needed more repairing. Her strength still hasn't returned, chest still aching from where the stake had punctured all the way down to her heart. She'll need several gallons more to completely recover. Or better yet, she could do with some vampire blood. "Why am I still alive?" she asks, because their understanding only worked one way: she doesn't kill him, but she knows all too well what she is to him. A soulless monster that has to be destroyed, with no mercy, no compassion and more importantly, no capacity to love. He should really know her better than that by now.

"I think a better question is how are you still alive?" John retorts, and closes the distance between them in a few decisive steps. He reaches out a hand for her chest and touches two fingers to the exposed patch of skin. Amelia groans in pain when he applies pressure. "My nephew tells me he staked you."

"And how is dear Jeremy?" Amelia avoids a straight answer; she can't give him any either way. She has no idea how she survived, how she can be talking to him right now. "Did you tell him who I am? Did you tell him about our little arrangement?" her voice is just above a whisper. He's so close to her; she only needs him to move another few inches and she can reach out to him, bite him, take from him what her body is begging her for.

Jonathan's hand forms in a tight fist and he presses it hard against her chest. The pain cuts through her like razorblades; Amelia shuts her eyes and tries not to cry out. "Don't test my patience, Amelia," he whispers in her ear, his nose brushing along her skin, and now he really is walking a dangerous slope. Her teeth ache, and she wants to bite down so badly, take her fill, take it all, but she knows she can't. He has every right to do this to her. "You shouldn't have come after my family," he says, as if he's just read her mind and only means to point out exactly why this is justified. But what else was she to do? She might not be like others her kind, but even humans were driven only by instinct when their life was at stake.

Amelia clenches her teeth tightly together. "Then Jeremy should have stayed away from mine," she mutters, and turns her head away from him. She knows she says it only because her pride is hurt; she's tied up like an animal and being treated like one, while a man she once trusted and chose to put his trust in her was threatening her life.

"Yes," Jonathan continues, and takes another few steps back. "The Salvatore brothers. " Amelia strains herself to look at him from the corner of her eye; how does he know this? "What do women see in those two anyway? Is it the money? The Italian features?" he asks, getting more confident by the minute.

"The sports cars," Amelia jokes, but doesn't feel the sentiment touching her heart. He's toying with her, but he wouldn't be alone in a room with her if there wasn't something he wanted from her that the other Council members weren't to know about. "What do you really want from me, Jonathan?" she asks.

"Pearl," he answers in short, and stares her down hard.

Amelia hesitates for long moments, too long perhaps, but in all the time she takes to think she can't for one second imagine what he'd want with Pearl. How does he know about her in the first place? How does he know about Damon and Stefan? Does this mean he knows about the other vampires too? About Katherine? "Why would I help you?" Amelia says and settles her head back against the wall, arms straining against the ropes holding her in place.

Then, there's a knock at the door.

"Because for now you still serve a purpose." Jonathan walks towards the door and puts a hand on the doorknob. She gets it now, why he's keeping her alive. He thinks they have mutual interests. But what could they possibly be? "You have information I need and I'm the only one standing between you and an angry mob that's ready to burn you at the stake. Consider the Salvatore brothers safe," he adds, but his eyes darken. "For now."

Jonathan closes the door behind him only to be confronted by Richard Lockwood and Elizabeth Forbes. "Has she said anything?" the major asks immediately, placing his hands in his sides. The tension in the room is icy; the major's mad at the sheriff that she hadn't seen this coming, hadn't known that Amelia could pose a threat to this town, hadn't seen how Damon Salvatore – a member of this very Council – was basically eating from a vampire's hand.

"Not much," he answers calmly, and stares back at the door. Amelia hadn't changed one bit; he hadn't really expected her to. She's the only one who ever calls him Jonathan, and truthfully, she's the only one he can stand it from. For some reason, hearing the name come from one as old as her – however old that is – just seems right.

"What about the Salvatore boy?" Major Lockwood asks.

Jonathan has not forgotten what he promised Amelia, but he does briefly wonder if Amelia can hear him through the door. Her hearing's sharp, but maybe not in her current condition. Jeremy had wounded her badly; he's almost impressed, only he needs Amelia now to keep Damon and possibly even Stefan in check. "An unwitting victim I'm afraid," he says, because it will be far easier if the rest of the Council continue thinking that Damon is human.

"Are you sure?" the major asks, because he remembers how Jenna Sommers had mentioned to Matt Donovan that Damon and Stefan had both been sick. What if the vampires had somehow found a cure? "Because if that kid turns out to be a vampire that is one giant cock-up..."

"The poison would have affected him if he was a vampire," Elizabeth tries to assure the major as well, but Jonathan can tell that he's not entirely convinced. She's right though, the sheriff, there's no way the poison could be defeated. So how did the Salvatore brothers manage to survive? "Someone has to tell him," the sheriff adds, and looks at the wooden door separating them from Amelia. "About her."

"I'll do that," Jonathan answers.

so in way of apology for making you all wait (and you might need to wait for the next chapter as well) - review = preview!