author's notes: HUGE apologies for taking this long to post another chapter! i had the biggest case of writer's block this past month BUT! in the mean time i've become the proud owner of a Bachelor's degree in Linguistics, so yay me? thanks a million for putting up with me, my dear readers, i'd be nothing without you. hope you all like the new chapter!
- this chapter is dedicated to Dawnie-7, i think she knows why :) -
setting: right after 1x14, goes AU from there.
disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination
MALUM DISCORDIAE
chapter 16: heart of stone
His hands are literally trembling around the steering wheel, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He can't believe he's here, in this car, seated next to his wife, Isobel, even though all reason had once told him that she'd be dead. But here she is now, dead silent in the passenger seat by his side, alive and kicking – in a manner of speaking – while he drives them somewhere just outside of town. She'd told him to, not compelled him, but something inside of him had obeyed without objection anyway. How could he not when so many of his questions have gone unanswered for the past five years?
He stares at her from the corner of his eye carefully, part of him afraid that she might lash out and act out on a vampire impulse. How did this happen? Was this Damon's doing? Instead of killing Isobel all those years ago, Damon chose to turn her? But strangely, thinking about Damon's part in all of this, he can't find himself getting more angry at Damon than he already is. Because deep down, after five years of digging through every facet of Isobel's life, after rationalizing her disappearance to himself, he knows that just maybe this had been her own choice. Maybe, just maybe, Isobel had wanted to become the very thing she'd been studying.
"Don't worry, Rick," Isobel says suddenly, with a cold detachedness in her voice that almost has him doubting whether this really is Isobel to begin with. There's little of the woman he once knew in her. What was it that Damon had once told him? A vampire's instinct is not to feel. Is that what Isobel is doing now? "You'll get your answers soon enough."
He stops the car in front of the abandoned warehouse Isobel had directed him towards. He has no idea what they're doing here, why they had to go this far just to talk. His train of thought doesn't do anything to calm his nerves. Alaric dares another glance at Isobel, but before he has a chance to bring her into focus she gets up from her seat and is out of the car, walking a distance away from his car.
It's only then that he notices another car is parked in front of the warehouse. Jonathan Gilbert emerges no five seconds later. Alaric is out of the car in no time. What is Jonathan Gilbert doing with Isobel? Isn't she everything he's trying to destroy? "What the hell is going on here?" Alaric asks, walking over to the both of them.
Isobel looks at John slowly, before they both look back towards him. "We have a proposition for you," John says.
She's not proud. Part of her knows that everything animal and instinctual inside of her was there before she turned, back when she was still human and living in the savagery that is now known as Germanic Europe. Things were different back then, every day was a struggle, a fight against another tribe, the Romans, and anyone else that wanted a piece of them. But she knows that after all this time, not so much has changed. She's changed, crucially, but humanity hasn't. At the very best they've gotten more inventive in their struggle for life. So she's not proud of what she is, what she was, what she might yet become.
Right now she wants to tell herself that things have gone horribly wrong. She couldn't have known that Jeremy would try to kill Damon, that she'd jump between him and Damon to sacrifice her own life so that Damon could live. She couldn't have known that she'd come back to life. But she should have known there was only one possible way in which Damon could have reacted to her death; the same way she had to her family's death once – by more killing, by taking out her revenge. She wants to tell herself it was wrong, that Damon deserved this guilt twice over and should feel pain over what he did. But she knows she herself never would. Not even to this day.
That's what she's not proud off. She was an animal long before ever becoming a vampire.
Damon follows her to the basement in silence, their footsteps barely audible as they descend the short set of stairs. Amelia can feel Damon's pain radiating off him. It's in his careful footsteps, in his shallow breathing, but most of all it's in his eyes. He'd always felt strongly about things, let it affect him in ways incomprehensible to others. She can even imagine that in his human life Damon Salvatore was quite the jealous type, so she can't imagine what it is like for him now. But she can guess.
"W-what's happening to me?" is the first thing out of Jeremy's mouth when he turns and faces them from the corner he's occupying, the one furthest from the door of the cell. He has two fingers inside his mouth, prying at his teeth. Amelia remembers how it feels all too well, despite it having been so long ago she knows the pain of transitioning as if it had been yesterday. "My gums—" Jeremy adds, but doesn't finish his utterance.
"You're transitioning, Jeremy," Amelia answers calmly, and Damon thinks only briefly about how she's the only one who could sound like that in a situation such as this. It's only then, for the first time in a hundred and fifty years that he wonders, are there other vampires out there created by Amelia? He suddenly feels selfish for thinking he could be the only one. But then, would it be so wrong to think of himself as the only one? He can't ask her, not now.
"Into one of you?" Jeremy's voice comes out a strangled cry of distress. "How is that even possible?" he shakes his head. He's well aware of how he died at Damon's hands, but was that it? A bite from a vampire was all it took?
Amelia takes a breath, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. She knows there's no longer any need to spare Jeremy's feelings over this; they've long since passed that moment. "If you die with vampire blood in your system, it revives you," she explains.
"Damon didn't—" Jeremy starts, but his breath catches in his throat.
"But I did." Amelia responds to his distress immediately; she goes to her knees in front of him, hoping to comfort him, but Jeremy remains in his corner, his knees hugged close to his body, hair tousled. Jeremy shakes his head, but he knows she's right. Amelia had fed off him first, and saved his life by feeding him her blood in return. "I did it to save you," Amelia says, but Jeremy doesn't look at her again. She can't blame him for that. "—only now it seems I've condemned you. Soon you will have to make the choice."
"Choice?" Jeremy's eyes shoot from her to Damon. Why he looks at Damon he doesn't know, all he knows is what he's known for several days now; he's becoming the very thing he loathes the most, the thing Alaric had told him to kill, the thing his uncle hunted, and his father before him. But none of them had every talked about a choice. If there was any choice, doesn't Amelia know he long since would have made it?
"Either you complete the transformation, or—" Amelia hesitates. This is it, right here, the moment where she tells Jeremy to chose between two kinds of deaths, one of the body, one of the soul. A choice she was never given, so she'd extended it to all those she had turned, including Damon. In all her centuries, Damon had been the only one to ever choose death. But she knows that somewhere between Damon truly dying, and feeding her the blood to complete his transformation, her reasoning isn't quite what it should be. Maybe she hadn't really given Damon a choice.
"Or what?" Jeremy asks frightfully.
"Or you die," Damon answers. For some reason, he feels as if Jeremy should hear this condemnation from him, instead of Amelia. He knows Jeremy already trusts Amelia more than him, something he can hardly blame him for.
Jeremy hesitates for only a second before standing up. "You— did this to me!" he shouts.
Amelia is on her feet in a split second as well. "Jeremy..." she starts, but Jeremy startles her by lunging himself forward towards her.
"Don't you defend him!" Jeremy shouts, almost rushing her, but Damon is between him and Amelia faster than his eyes can register. What is it with Damon and Amelia? Why do they defend each other like this? Can vampires truly feel that kind of love for each other? But he's far too angry to give it any serious thought, or allow the thought to calm him down. "You're just as much to blame! You fed off me and gave me your blood. And for what? To save me, for—for this? I will never become one of you," he sneers, not backing away from Damon one inch.
Amelia turns and walks out of the cell, waiting for Damon to join her outside. Seconds later Damon's footsteps are behind her, and she hears the lock of the door snapping shut in place. Her back is to Damon, because for the first time in what she's become to regard as an eternity, she doesn't know how to handle the situation. She won't judge Damon for what he did to Jeremy, but how will she be able to face Stefan? There's always been a rivalry between them, not just for Katherine's love once upon a time, but Damon had made it clear they were rivals over her affections as well. How can she keep this from falling apart?
"Are you going to let him die?" Damon's voice breaks through her scattered train of thought, and she turns towards him slowly. "Elena won't—" Damon shakes his head, but Amelia's speaking again before he has a chance to figure out what he was going to say in the first place. Elena would never let it happen. He's not sure she could.
"It's not Elena's choice to make," Amelia says, seemingly surprised by his words. Is it such a strange question to ask? But no, Damon thinks, for some reason Amelia has always held strongly to her rules. He'd always hated them, had revolted against them like a teenager rebelling against his parents, but he knows he won't get away with trying to break them now. He knows he should take responsibility for what he did to Jeremy, and that he shouldn't allow Amelia to feel guilty over something he did, but he can't help it. She's so much better at this than him.
"You told me once no one chooses death," Damon says, and hears the words echoed at the back of his mind, the way she'd spoken to him over a century ago. He turns the cell door key over in the palm of his hand.
Amelia smiles to herself softly; it's funny that it should be Damon to tell her that, when long ago he was the first she met that wanted to die. He didn't want to live in a world where Katherine didn't exist. It's difficult to think of Damon as a romantic. "You did," Amelia answers, and closes the distance between them in a few slow strides, placing one of her hands over his heart. She's barely touching him, but it's close enough for him to feel it. "Before your brother tempted you." Before Stefan led that girl into the meadow for his brother to feed on; the one thing Stefan always wished he could undo.
Damon looks at her, a slight panic taking hold of him. Is she trying to imply something about his love for Katherine, about how it could never rival the love he has for Amelia? "That was because I thought Katherine was dead," he says too fast. He wills his heart to beat, if just one dull thud to prove how much stronger his love for her is. "I didn't see the point in—" but he stops, because his mouth has suddenly caught up with his brain, and he knows Amelia has already heard this before. She has to know though, she has to realise.
What's the point? Amelia hears her dream-question reverberating throughout her thoughts. We are! dream-Damon had answered, and it's the only reason why Amelia finds herself disregarding the mention of Katherine. It had been her subconscious mind speaking rather than the real Damon, but it's proof that deep down she knows exactly what Damon feels for her. She's turned other humans into vampires, but none she loved. "I know," she says, and places her other hand on Damon's cheek.
Damon draws himself another step closer, his body connecting with Amelia's, one of his hands cupping the back of Amelia's neck. They both take in a shuddery breath as their noses touch, closing their eyes, the memory of the last time they did this still so fresh and vivid in their minds it's difficult not to go back; just two bodies alone in a room with nothing else to worry about but the touch of skin. Damon doesn't know what it is about this non-distance between them that drives him this crazy; he's already crazy about her, but something gets added when he has her this close. All rational thought – or what rational thought he's capable of – leaves him, and there's only her. Only them.
It's when Amelia rakes her fingers through his hair, grabbing the back of his head hard that he captures her lips in an instant. Amelia breathes in sharply through her nose when Damon's lips connect with hers, and wraps her arms around his neck. Before she knows it Damon's tongue pushes past her teeth, his arms are around her torso, and he's forcing her back against the wall, his body settling pliant against hers. The rough stones cut into her back, but she doesn't let on. She's never wanted anyone more than Damon right now.
Amelia moans, and Damon digs deeper, begging entrance into a place he's been trying to get at for such a long time already; Amelia's heart.
Upstairs, the front door opens so violently that it connects with the hallway wall, and almost shakes the house to its foundations. It's Elena and Stefan, finally having made their way back to the mansion.
Damon releases Amelia's lips from the shock of it, but Amelia's arms keep him place. He knows she means to say something, about him being strong enough, about everything being alright. But he doesn't need her to; it's not his place to ask any sort of comfort from her now. Part of him can't understand why she's about to support him through this.
He follows her back upstairs, up the same steps they descended not twenty minutes ago. They make it into the house before either Stefan or Elena can see where they came from, but Amelia can already see the suspicion in Stefan's eyes. She briefly wonders where else they looked for Jeremy before coming back here.
"Is he here?" Elena asks anxiously, brushing her hair back behind her ears, bouncing impatiently from one foot to the other. "Is Jeremy here?" Stefan, Damon and Amelia can hear how her heart is jack hammering in her chest.
There's another beat, followed by a dead silence. "He's downstairs," Amelia says eventually, crossing her arms over her chest.
Elena finds Amelia's eyes devoid of any sort of emotion. What is she trying to tell her? "What?" Elena asks, shaking her head, because maybe deep down she already knows the answer. Her brother could be— he could be dead.
Amelia doesn't avert her eyes; she doesn't even consider it. There's only one way to put a tragedy like this to any person. "I'm sorry, Elena."
Elena's face falls. She looks at Amelia, then Damon, then to Stefan who's standing next to her. Their expressions tell her all she needs to know. "Oh my God," she breathes, looking at Damon again the next second, but he's cast down his eyes. And then she runs, to where she knows Jeremy will be locked up.
Stefan means to follow her immediately, but Amelia's voice stops him in his tracks. "Stefan," Amelia says, and he stops, but he can't look at her. He can't help but feel betrayed by her, in league with his brother. But Amelia isn't about to make any excuses, like he'd expected. She takes a key from Damon's hand, and holds it out for him. "Make sure he doesn't—" she starts, but he turns to her roughly.
"He's her brother," Stefan sneers, meaning to say that Jeremy could never hurt Elena, or the other way around. And then he looks at Damon, repeating the same words to his brother with his eyes. He's her brother! they scream at Damon; he feels Amelia's hand on his chest, holding him back. She knows him too well. She knows them too well. It's not even been said, that Jeremy is turning into a vampire because of Amelia's blood in his system and Damon killing him, but he can already feel their bond unravelling. Stefan knows that she'll stand by his brother, no matter what happens. Something's different between them.
Amelia can almost feel Stefan and Damon shaking where they stand. But she won't stand for this, not now, not now that Damon needs her and Elena needs Stefan. She pulls Stefan back by the arm, placing the cell door key in his hand. "She's human," Amelia says, and looks him in the eyes coldly. "And he's transitioning." There. It's been said. "I don't want her in there without one of us with her."
She does the one thing she has down to perfection. She turns her heart into stone.
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