Kind of a short chapter, but it does the job. Next chapter is one of my personal favorites of the season: For Whom the Bell Tolls. By the way, have I thanked you guys enough for all of the reviews, follows, and favorites? I was worried that no one would like this idea. So thank you all, it really means a lot to me. Enjoy this chapter! I know all of you out there are rooting for Damon and Madeline...I feel bad for you. Their relationship is so not easy.

Note: This chapter has been revised. Nothing's new, it's just better writing.

Disclaimer: Chapter 1 please :)

Original Sin

I woke, with a startling jolt, in the bed I woke up in on my first day in this dream world. Gasping, I looked around my cold, empty bed, and realized that I was still in this goddamn dream. The thought pushed at me: maybe it wasn't a dream, after all. But how ridiculous would that be? It had to be a dream. One that I couldn't get out of.

But even though I wished I could spend my entire morning wondering whether or not this was all real, I had more pressing matters. For example, the dream I'd just had before waking up. The images of that dream snapped over my vision, giving me feelings of guilt and treachery. The sun gleamed into the window, blinding me from focusing on anything but those feelings.

It was all clear as day: Stefan was in danger. Stefan was...hungry. Bloodthirsty. It rocked me sick to my core, but I had already thrown up enough because of the incident with Stefan's safe. I wasn't about to do it again.

"Wake up, sunshine," I heard from beside me, and I focused my eyes to find Elena walking up to the side of my bed, already dressed. But she was...different, needless to say. Her hair was curled instead of straight and I couldn't see the red streak. What was going on? "Something tells me that we just had the same dream about a certain Salvatore brother." Elena smiled.

I raised my eyebrows. "You had a dream about Stefan, too?" Elena nodded. "Okay...that is definitely not a coincidence."

Elena snorted in a way that was so unlike her. "Obviously. All right, get up. Get dressed. I'll go wake Cinderella and her vampire Prince Charming."

Now this was definitely different. "What are you talking about, Elena? Wake who up?" I reached up and rubbed my head, getting tied up in confusion. Elena looked back at me with her eyebrows cocked.

"Excuse me, did I just hear you call me Elena?" I sat up straight in my bed and shrugged.

"Um...that is your name, Elena. Wow." I pulled off my covers and sighed as I got out of the bed unwillingly, wanting more time to sleep. Elena put a hand on her hip defensively.

"Try to call me by my doppelgänger's name again, Mads, and I will claw your eyes out. Even as a human, I'm stronger than you." A pissed-off Elena stormed out of the room, leaving me with one question: what the hell was a doppelgänger?

"So I found nine bars off of Route 29 and none of them are called Jo's," Damon informed me and Elena as he walked into the parlor. Elena was mapping out...something. Hey, what did I know? My subconscious wouldn't let me out of this hellhole that these people called a life and on top of it, I was just deprived my full 12 hours of sleep.

Elena shook her head. "I had a feeling that something was wrong with Stefan all summer and I ignored it. But I was right. Stefan was in a safe." She let out a bitter laugh. "And probably killed whoever it was that found him."

"Probably?" I questioned in a high-pitched tone. Elena looked over at me. "I'm pretty sure he did, if that body didn't do it for you. And don't you think it's a little insane how we're all following a lead based off of a dream we all had? Not to mention the fact that it's insane we all the same dream in the first place?" After all, dreams weren't that reliable. Hell, I would know.

"It doesn't sound insane, it is insane," Damon agreed, looking over at his girlfriend. Elena frowned and Damon conceded easily. "But I'm open minded." I rolled my eyes. Do these two ever get tired of bending to the other's demands?

"Shotgun!" the three of us heard, and we all turned to see the Elena look-alike as she strutted out with a bag on her forearm. Elena and Damon looked at her with curious eyes. "What? I get carsick in the backseat. A charming human side effect that you stuck me with," she snapped at Elena. The look-alike dropped a bag on a table while Elena let out a hiss. I was enjoying it, surprisingly. I think I liked the Elena look-alike more than I liked the actual Elena.

"Please tell me that she's not coming," Elena said through her teeth.

"Trust me, I have no interest in Katherine's well being, but—for some reason—Silas wants her real bad. And if Silas wants her, I want her more," Damon strategized. I found myself staring at the two Elena's in the room, though. It was too uncanny. How could they look exactly alike? Even twins didn't share that kind of similarity—they were always a little different. I knew what the word "doppelgänger" meant, but it was an archaic term that no one really used anymore. So, naturally, I was curious. Plus, it was giving me a headache.

"Can't we just stash her in the cellar?" Elena suggested, her bitch-mode having been activated. "Or maybe a deep, dark well...with a pair of water wings?" She smiled at Damon innocently. I frowned at her. She needed to stop making her so-called "jokes". They weren't funny.

Katherine snarled back, "Do you honestly think that I wanna take a road trip with you? America's most boring self-righteous vampire?" Elena rolled her eyes. "Just remember, Damon wouldn't have to play bodyguard if you didn't shove that cure down my throat."

"The Cure..." I trailed off, trying to remember what Caroline told me about it. I knew that someone had taken it, but I didn't really pay all that much attention to her. I didn't really care at the time. I looked over at Elena. "Are you telling me that you had a chance to be human again and you didn't take it? I thought that was what you wanted, to not be a vampire anymore. I thought that was what...everyone wanted."

I looked around the room at them all, but it was when Damon's voice muttered to me that I realized there was an even bigger issue amongst us. "Not everyone wanted to be human, Madeline."

My eyes ran over him and I watched as he gave me a curt nod, his eyes cold. Oh. Shit. Maybe that was the underlay of the problems with us. I was human, he was vampire. It made sense...

"Yeah, you missed a lot while you were gone, sunshine." Katherine shot me a smile, and I looked over at her just as she switched to look over at Elena. "Though, I will admit, I do take pride in knowing that you did, in fact, waste your one shot at a human life on me." Elena scoffed, but I could tell that she was hurt.

As for me, I was a little frustrated with the look-alike tension in the room. Everything was so complicated. There was no way I could've dreamed of this intricate world. Maybe I had to accept the fact that this was real. That there was no way to get out of this. Somehow, I had been warped into a different life. It made me depressed to even think about it—all this world consisted of was death, despair, and desire. It was no life to live.

Without a single word, I just stood up and walked outside, sure that no one had noticed me leave in the midst of a "doppelgänger" showdown. I needed some fresh air to get my head on straight. It didn't help that I had no one to talk to about this, and stubborn old me decided not to tell anyone else about my impairment. But I think it would be counterproductive to tell everyone that I didn't remember them. Elena's compassion would stand in the way and she would start pretending to care about me, and from what I learned about Damon, I think he would try to make me remember him because of his own selfish need for me to remember our time together. So instead of saying anything, I knew I had to keep my mouth shut and play along for the good of everyone.

"Madeline?" I turned around to face Damon, surprisingly, who was shutting the front door of the Salvatore house with three bags in his hands. "You okay?"

Was I okay? Hell no. And I was tired of people asking me that, too. I gave him the same, standard answer. "Yeah. I'm fine." I reached forward and extended my hand for a bag. Damon just stared at me. "Come on, Damon. I can help."

"It's heavy," Damon protested.

I grimaced. "And it's also sunny outside, but do you see me saying anything?"

Damon frowned and tilted his head at me as if he didn't enjoy the witty remark. Ironic, since he seemed to be amused by everything. "I don't think—"

"I'm not a child, Damon; and I'm also not as weak as everyone seems to think I am." I didn't know where it came from, but I just snapped. Damon looked at me for a while, but he didn't take offense to it. Instead, he smirked at me before extending one of the bags.

"Go ahead," he offered, and I grabbed onto the bag that he held out. The instant he released it, though, it sent me flying straight towards the ground. Damon looked down at me, never dropping his smirk, and I glared up at him.

"You asshole!"

"I told you it was heavy," Damon pointed out as I tried to lift the bag up. What the hell did he have in that thing? Rocks? The fact that he gave me the heaviest bag proved to me how much of a child Damon was. The vampire just effortlessly grabbed the bag, relieving me from my duty, and I heaved while he walked over to the trunk of his car.

An hour or so into the road trip, Damon, Elena, Katherine, and I were all riding along in Damon's car, speeding down Route 29. I sat with Katherine in the back while Damon and Elena sat up front together. I was mentally disgusted and quite possibly bothered.

"Are you sure you know what you're looking for?" Damon asked openly. Personally, I didn't remember much of the dream, I just remembered Stefan's feelings. His pain, his sadness...it was bringing my mood down. But the hunger...the hunger was terrifying. I felt afraid for him and for whoever crossed his path. It made me cringe. Damon looked outside of the car to the open road. "The last bar had a red awning and a neon sign."

"I'll know it when I see it," replied Elena. Katherine leaned forward to fit her head through the window between the two seats up in the front of the car where Damon and Elena were sitting. I realized, quite quickly, that I wasn't the only one who was bothered by them.

"Me too," she agreed.

"I didn't ask you," Damon told her with a bitter smile.

Katherine frowned. "I'm just trying to make conversation." She moved back in her seat and I sighed as I stared out the windows and studied the moving trees. Katherine then murmured to herself, "Anything to drown out the sound of eggshells breaking."

"What about you, Madeline?" Damon asked, catching my attention as he looked through the rearview mirror at me. I let my eyes wander over his in the mirror. He cocked an eyebrow. "Have you seen the bar yet?"

"I don't really remember it." I shrugged and turned back to the window with an exhale. "All I remember is the way Stefan felt. Where he was and who he was with...not so much."

Elena jumped at the chance to ask, "How did he feel?"

"Betrayed. Sad. Terrified." I stopped for a moment before adding, "Hungry."

Things went silent for the longest moment. I didn't mean to make things awkward, I was only telling the truth. It was when Elena muttered, "I knew I should've listened to that feeling," again, I nearly broke in half. It was getting on my nerves. I get it, she felt bad; but was it really going to make a difference whether or not she beat herself up about it? It was time to move on and accept her mistake.

"Yeah, I over heard that," Katherine jumped in, returning to her position between the two front seats. "You've been dreaming about Stefan all summer? Must be hard on a new relationship. Especially when you're having those kinds of dreams while lying in bed next to his brother."

"They weren't dreams," Elena said immediately. "It was like Madeline said—it was just a bad feeling. Like something wasn't right with him."

"Oh, no, yeah. I totally get it. There's still a connection between you two. Maybe, deep down, you know that he's your one true love and breaking up with him to be with your sister's boyfriend was a big mistake."

"Katherine," Damon warned harshly. It made me flinch. Literally flinch. "We're not getting into that right now."

The Elena look-alike shrugged. "I'm just saying." She turned around at me and I caught her as she winked. "Don't worry, sunshine. I'm on your side. What Elena did was such a slut move. And she can't even admit that it was wrong. Even I would admit that." Katherine turned to look at Elena, and I realized that Katherine was just doing it to get under Elena's skin.

"Ignore her," Damon spat angrily. "As soon as the vervain's out of her system, we'll compel her and put her on mute." His voice was oddly chipper. He really didn't like her, and my guess was that hatred ran deeper than just that snide comment.

Katherine moved on. "You know, I wonder...maybe Stefan's been trying to reach out to you all summer, but you were too busy with Damon, so he reached out to the two people he trusts—me and Madeline." No one said anything and Katherine leaned back in her seat. "Nah. You're probably right. All three of us had the exact same dream on the exact same night. Why would that mean something?"

Again, no one spoke, and we just continued speeding down the highway.

After another hour of awkward silence in Damon's car with my sister, my ex, and her look-alike, we finally pulled up to another bar. My memory flashed, and I instantly recognized it as the bar in the dream we'd all been giving. Elena said the same thing, and I touched my head after seeing the flashback memory. My head hurt again, but I tried to brush it off. Damon and Elena got out of the car quietly, and I noticed that Katherine had fallen asleep next to me. Damon held the driver's seat of his convertible open for me, and cautiously, he helped me get out. I whispered a token of my gratitude as we left Katherine in the car sleeping.

"Are we really just gonna leave her in the car?" Elena asked.

"It'd be rude to deprive a person of sleep," I murmured to myself. I wish someone'd said that for me when I was woken up earlier. Damon nodded in agreement and looked over at Elena with exhausted eyes.

"Yeah, that and the only time she shuts up is when she's sleeping. I don't want to disturb our peace and quiet." Elena sighed and stopped in her tracks, and I barely noticed before Damon spoke again. "I thought you said this was the one."

"It is," Elena and I said at the same time. But after we both chorused both words, I shut up and let her speak. "It looked exactly like it did in the dream." Elena peered at Damon. "Isn't it a little...freaky?"

I snorted. "Duh, it's freaky. We know that, moving on. Let's get inside." I rolled my eyes and stepped forward. Younger siblings. I didn't have any in the real world, but now I knew how it felt and I thanked my lucky stars for being an only child. Damon and Elena followed me, and we all walked into the bar to not find Stefan. Instead, we found a single woman maintaining the empty bar. She had white-blonde hair and had a bandage on her neck. We all realized the same thing, but none of us said anything.

"Can I get you something?" she asked us as we approached the bar.

"Yeah, sure." Damon leaned on the countertop and looked the girl right in the eyes. "Why don't you tell me what happened to your neck, Jo?"

Surprisingly, the girl answered his question. I thought about it and then realized: he was doing that "compulsion" thing Elena had been talking about back at Whitmore. It was interesting to watch it in action. "Uh...some sicko attacked me. Bit me. Told me to run, so I did, and when I looked back, he was on fire."

"The sun must've come up," Elena whispered. "He doesn't have his daylight ring."

Damon continued his mind tricks. Was this what Silas did to me? "And then what happened?"

"Some woman shoved him in a truck. Drove away."

"Did you know this woman?"

"No. Uh, she was driving Cam Peterson's truck? He lives about ten miles down that dirt road out back?" Jo said the statements like she was posing questions, but she was really just telling us all we needed to know. She smiled at Damon and poured him a shot of alcohol. "You look like you could use one of these," she told him, passing him the drink. Elena glanced around the bar while I watched Damon smile. But something didn't add up right. Stefan was...kidnapped?

"Hmm..." Damon trailed off and looked at the shot in approval. "I could. Thank you." He tilted his head and knocked the alcohol back. After all, who could resist a pretty girl who offers alcohol, right? Damon was so stereotypical. But, suddenly, Damon started to go into a coughing fit.

"Damon? Damon," I tried, but I didn't really know what to do. Pat him on the back until he coughed it back up? He ended up coughing it all over the counter and floor, and I stared at it with bile threatening to rise in my throat. I choked it down, though, having no tolerance for my weak stomach. Damon choked again and slammed his hand down on the table loudly, making me flinch.

"Vervain," he choked out, his voice strained as he gasped. Elena and I looked up at the bartender.

"What did you do?" my sister snapped, grabbing the glass that Damon had taken the alcohol from.

"I told her to pour him a drink," someone said, interrupting our interrogation. I sensed a strong accent. "Or I'd kill her."

Though Damon was still recovering, I felt his shoulder nudge me back and the woman before us with a European accent raised a gun in her hand and pointed it at Elena. "Who the hell are you?" Damon demanded, still coughing.

Suddenly, before the woman had a chance to answer, Katherine walked into the bar without any worries until she saw that we were under attack. The European lady looked back and forth between Katherine and Elena. "Which one of you is Katherine Pierce?"

"She is!" Katherine said, pointing to Elena as she held up her hands defensively. I didn't correct her, but I knew that was wrong. Elena was standing beside Damon, I knew that for a fact.

The woman smiled. "Katherine's a compulsive liar." She looked at Elena and pointed the gun at her. Wait, did that actually work? This woman was an idiot. "But I need her alive." Oh, that made more sense.

Without warning, Elena flashed forward and attacked the woman as she looked back at Katherine. "Katherine, run!" With no objection from the human Elena look-alike, Katherine ran off the second Elena told her to.

"You really do look exactly alike," the European woman hissed before she threw Elena against the wall and fled as well, running after Katherine. Damon walked over to Elena and helped her up.

"Wonderful," he sneered. "Now I've got a vampire bounty hunter to deal with. Let me guess? Euro-bitch was not a part of the dream." Damon looked between me and Elena for confirmation.

"I've never seen her before," Elena confessed. I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, well, whoever she is, she wants Katherine. Which means that she's probably Silas's spy." Damon panted under his breath and I stood by the bar, alone and confused. I was still unclear on who Silas was. Was he immortal? Was he a witch? Who knew?

"I'll go chase after her," Elena breathed as she walked away from Damon. "You two go save Stefan." Damon nodded at her, but I piped up, turning my gaze from Damon to Elena.

"Wait! Elena, I think I'll be more help with you. If Stefan's as hungry as I felt, he's going to rip right through me." I tried to come up with the best excuse to get out of alone time with Damon, but Elena just shook her head.

"Mads, no. You can't keep up and I can't protect you and Katherine." I cursed to myself as she fled the scene, but I wasn't about to give up so easily. I walked in her direction, but I was stopped when Damon abruptly flashed up to me and blocked my way.

"You're kidding me, right?" he spat. I shook my head.

"No. I'm serious, Damon. He was hungry." Be convinced, I demanded, suddenly wishing I had a superpower where I could control other people's minds. Damon shook his head at me as I tried to move around him.

"You can't go out there. You're human. You'll die."

"Elena could die, too! It's the same thing."

"It's not, actually." Damon gripped my arm tightly and I hissed in pain as he dragged me out of the bar with no way to escape him. "God, I did not miss this."

"Let go of me!" I growled, trying to push away from him. But my arm was turning blue under his grasp. "Damon, you're...hurting me!" He shoved me into the car as soon as we got outside and shut the door, and when I tried to open it again, I found that he had already gotten into the driver's seat and had locked the car. By the time I got my next words out, he was backing out of the bar's parking lot. I huffed and leaned back in my seat. "God damn it, Damon! You're so frustrating!"

"Like I haven't heard that one before." Damon shifted the car in drive and began to drive down that dirt road Jo told us about. "You'll thank me when you're not dead. Euro-bitch would've clawed right through you if you went after Elena."

"You know..." I trailed off, tired of it all. Eventually, I just crossed my arms and watched as Damon sped up the car to a speed I didn't think was possible. At this rate, ten miles would seem like two. "Can you just stop pretending for a second? It's getting old."

"Pretending what?" Damon scoffed.

"Pretending that you care."

An awkward silence hung, and Damon suddenly cut his eyes over to me. I huffed again and turned to look at him, knowing that he was staring at me. "You think that I'm pretending to care about you?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, Damon. I just feel like arguing. It's fun," I snarled the words so that he would know I was being sarcastic. Damon banged his hands against the wheel.

"But that's the point, Madeline! It's what you do! You built walls before we got together and now you're doing it again. Hell, you even did it while we were together! I would say I'm surprised, but..." He sighed heavily, as if he were expecting it. I widened my eyes.

"Walls? So that's what's supposed to justify you cheating on me with my sister?" I snapped.

"How many times have I apologized to you?"

"I don't know, Damon; how many times should it take me to forgive you? Two apologies...three apologies...ten apologies...?" I asked sarcastically. Damon peered at me from the corner of his eye as I started to ramble on by myself. "I mean, you treat me like I'm a pet dog anyway, so I guess you can just make every decision for me then—"

"I don't treat you like you're a pet dog," Damon countered, narrowing his eyes. "Madeline, all I do is try to protect you."

"Well maybe you should stop!"

Damon cut off the engine as we came to a stop of our own in front of the cabin. Like I said, his speed was so furious that ten miles didn't seem like much. I stared down at myself and noticed Damon was staring out the windshield, sighing to himself.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he said eventually. I realized, then and there, that now was not the time to start getting into this. I cleared my throat and shook my head.

"Nothing. Nothing." I gestured to the car door and looked at him. "Can you let me out now so we can go save Stefan? Please?"

With a slight hesitation, Damon finally unlocked the door of his car and we both climbed out of the Camaro and immediately went to the cabin in front of us. Cautious not to say a word, we hastily walked into the cabin to figure out what the hell was going on with Damon's brother and who the hell decided to kidnap him.

When we walked in, Damon looked around, and I just saw Stefan in my vision. He sat in a ring of some kind of flowers, and he was sitting in a chair tied up with a strange stem-like rope. A vine? Why was he tied up with a vine?

"Stefan?" Damon whispered, finding no threat around. We both took cautious steps towards Stefan. The bronze-haired vampire looked up at him. "You couldn't call, brother?"

Stefan shrugged against the vines. "Nice to see you, too, Damon." Suddenly, Stefan's eyes moved towards mine and widened. "Mads? How did you...?"

I held up a hand. "Questions later, saving now."

Damon looked up and surveyed the cabin around him. "What the hell is going on here?" Damon asked.

"Well," Stefan began cautiously, "Silas's ex-girlfriend decided to come back from the Other Side." Damon tried untying the vines.

"Qetsi-whatever?" Damon struggled with the vines, but it was useless. It wasn't budging. I stepped forward to help, but a voice made me jolt out of surprise.

"It's Qetsiyah." I practically jumped out of my skin and turned around to face a beautiful woman holding a flower. I tried to let my heart recover and she just stared past me like I didn't exist, glancing over at Stefan. "Do you see why I want to change it?" With an annoyed expression, she walked towards the fireplace without another word. Well, wasn't she a happy camper? "You won't be able to break those vines. The spell won't release him until I get what I want."

Damon stood up. "Well, I guess the rumors are true. You are a ray of sunshine. Question—why is my brother wearing your compost pile?"

"I'm going to link Stefan to Silas," the Qetsiyah girl said, standing up with a bowl in her hand. "Casting a spell on his doppelgänger will neutralize Silas's mental powers. Once he's weakened, I will force him to take the Cure." Stefan had a doppelgänger too? Where was mine? And Damon's? It seemed like this world had a shitload of them to pass around.

"Well, that's a great idea. Force the Cure down this throat!" Damon laughed sourly, as if reveling in Qetsiyah's stupidity. His voice rose to a higher volume, and I flinched unknowingly. "The Cure's gone! Done! It's ingested."

"Katherine, you mean? I'm aware of her condition. She was supposed to be with you," Qetsiyah snapped.

"Wait, Katherine took the Cure?" Stefan asked beside me. I nodded at him. Unlike me, he didn't know this because he didn't remember anything—he just spent the summer drowning in a safe. He definitely wins that one.

Damon looked down at his brother. "We have a lot to catch up on, Stefan." Damon looked back up Qetsiyah. "Wait, what do you mean 'supposed to be with' me?" Qetsiyah fell silent, and that's when it clicked in Damon's mind. "Did you plant those dreams? Was it some kind of witch party trick?"

I shook my head, confused. "Wait a second, if you planted those dreams, why the hell am I here?" It didn't seem like I was really important in this world. Qetsiyah looked over at me and shrugged.

"I need you, too." Her attention turned back to Damon. "So where is she? Katherine?"

"We...ran into a little snag."

"Then I'll get started without her," Qetsiyah said after a while. She began to wave her hands over the bowl and chanted while she did so. Witches? Oh, God. What was next? Werewolves? No, hybrids. Vampires and werewolves. I wouldn't be surprised if I was half-human, half-unicorn or something.

"Okay..." Damon trailed off. "Well, thanks for the hospitality, but we should really get going if we want to beat traffic." Damon patted Stefan's shoulder sarcastically and the frightened younger brother just nodded as Qetsiyah kept chanting.

"Yep. Yep, he's right."

"What is she doing?" I asked, wrinkling my nose as I watched Qetsiyah in her trance. Damon shrugged, answering my question, but I didn't really need an answer. It was just...weird.

"Madeline," Qetsiyah said suddenly. How the hell did she know my name? "When I tell you, you're going to jump into that circle and offer your wrist. Stefan, you're going to feed on her until I tell you to stop."

My mouth dropped open. "Huh?" I asked, dumbfounded. Damon stepped in front of me.

"Yeah...that's not happening." His words were slow and disbelieving. I peered at Qetsiyah as she looked up at Damon with rock-hard eyes.

"Probably don't want to get on my bad side," she suggested angrily. Damon stepped forward and he maneuvered himself around the circle to face her.

"You realize that you're not the only one with a bad side, right?"

"Aren't you brave?" Qetsiyah laughed, but then looked over at me. Her eyes glanced between me and Damon, and something clicked in her brain. "Oh. So you're hers? Right. Well, that makes sense, then." She shrugged as I saw Damon's eyebrows rise in utter confusion. Qetsiyah just frowned at him. "Relax. She won't be killed."

"You think my brother's taste buds are going to listen to that?" Damon urged.

"Without Silas's mental powers, he's an immortal nobody. We can defeat him. Isn't that what you wanted?" she asked. Damon fell completely silent, as if thinking it over. Taking the silence as my cue, I realized that this was going to end one way or another: willingly or unwillingly.

"I'm okay with it," I blurted out without realizing it. I tried to be brave, but I didn't really want to do this. But if it was what defeated Silas, freed Stefan, and got us out of this mess, I was all for it. Damon looked back at me and growled.

"Madeline. No."

"Damon, I'll be fine." I stepped forward and looked back at Stefan. "Come on. You won't kill me, will you?"

Stefan shook his head, but it wasn't in response to my question. "Mads, no. Damon's right. I can't control myself, I might kill you. You shouldn't put yourself at risk."

I looked at the witch, who stared at me with raised eyebrows. "I don't have a choice, do I?" Qetsiyah shook her head, and I exhaled. Damon looked back and forth between the two of us and he faced Qetsiyah head-on.

"I don't care what she says. It's not happening. I won't let it."

"Madeline's made her decision," Qetsiyah responded, ignoring Damon. "And I don't think you're going to be able to stop her." Damon turned around at me, and I tried to stand my ground. I needed to stand up for myself—to make my own decision. I think Damon saw it when I changed looks at him, like I was switching from the Madeline who was in love with him to a Madeline he'd never seen before. "Stefan?"

The vampire inside the circle sighed and nodded. "D-Do it. Just...do it, all right?"

Without hesitation, Qetsiyah nodded to me. "Step inside now, Madeline." I swallowed hard, and Stefan and Damon watched me with cautious eyes as I stepped inside the circle of compost and turned back at Qetsiyah.

"What now, again?"

"Offer your wrist," she instructed. I rolled up the sleeve of my shirt and shook my hand out nervously. "I did promise that it won't kill you, but you'll be unconscious. It's hard to say how long."

I turned back to Stefan with a nod, and I knew he could see my fear. I walked over to him and shut my eyes. "Please...don't kill me."

Stefan swallowed and nodded. "I'll...try." God, that wasn't reassuring. With a shaking breath, I offered my wrist to him, and he leaned forward as his face transformed into that of a demon's. I watched as his fangs elongated and he bit down into my wrist, causing me to hiss at the pain. I looked away, only to have my eyes catch and angry Damon. I wanted to apologize, but it wasn't his choice to make. Stefan drank harder and harder by the minute, and I could feel the life slowly draining from my body.

"Keep drinking, Stefan."

When would it end? Black spots appeared in my vision as Stefan quickly drained me, unable to help himself. God, I was going to die. I shut my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

"Keep drinking."

"More?" I heard Damon growl through my shut eyes.

"He needs just about all of it."

"I thought you said it wouldn't kill her!"

"It won't. Trust me."

"Trust you? If she dies because of you, I swear to God—"

That was all I heard before I completely buckled and dropped to the floor with a thud, and everything fell to a dark, dark color.

I was furious, but at the same time, I felt like he could've been much more understanding to our situation. Elena was my sister—and if Elijah told me there was a way to save her by sacrificing myself, I wouldn't hesitate to take it. He had to understand that, right?

I think he did, but he just didn't want to let me go.

"Don't you dare, Madeline!" Damon shouted at me, his eyes hard and cold. "Klaus wants Elena, not you. She'll be fine."

I stepped forward. "But, Damon, we don't know that. And you have to understand that if there's something I can do to save her from the risk, I'll do it." I didn't want to say what I was really thinking—Elena was devastated. She knew she would potentially be leaving Stefan alone. I didn't want her to have to go through that; I didn't want either of them to have to go through that. Elijah told me that I could take her place if I wished.

"You will not!" Damon snapped at me. I flinched at his volume, but he didn't lower his tone at all. "I don't care how bad Klaus wants this ritual to happen, you are not dying because of it. Let Elena take the risk."

"Damon, you don't mean that." I shook my head at him. "You care about her, too. You know you do—"

"God damn it, Madeline! No! No! I said no! You're not doing this."

Now I was getting a little angrier than I should've been. I knew Damon was only trying to protect me, but he had no right to tell me what I could and couldn't do. I shook my head at him. "I'll come back," I tried, but he didn't budge. "Damon, she's my sister. I love her."

"And I love you!" Damon retorted, catching me completely off guard. A silence passed between us before he swallowed and softened, "Doesn't that matter to you at all?"

Love? How could he love me when I didn't know what love was, myself? I stared at him for what felt like eternity before I tried to find a way to get out of this. "Damon, you know it matters. It will always matter. But..." I trailed off, taking in a deep breath. "I can't let it matter. Just not right now."

Damon set his mouth in a hard line. "When will it matter, Madeline?"

"Damon—"

"No," Damon cut me off. "I'm serious. I didn't compel you to forget that I loved you because you asked me to. I didn't do it, even though I should've." The word cut through me like a cold knife. "And I'm even telling you now without any intention of doing it. So why don't you believe me?"

"I believe you," I told him, nodding as I stepped forward and grabbed his hand. "Damon, I do. I just...I can't let that get to me. Not when all this is happening. I need to have a clear mind about this."

Damon looked down at our hands and then he looked back up at me. "Elena will be fine. You need to stop pretending like I don't factor into anything. Madeline, I will not let you die." He squeezed my hand. "I can't imagine another day without you anymore."

I bit down on my lip and shook my head. "You won't have to. The elixir will work, and when it does, you'll see. I promise." With a sad smile, I slipped my hand out of his and began to exit his room, but instead, Damon flitted in front of me with evil, volatile, cold-hearted Damon eyes.

"What will it take to have you realize that I am dead serious about this, Madeline?" He gripped my shoulders hard, and I realized I pushed him too far.

"Damon, please—"

"You're not going to die! Not on my watch."

"I don't have to die. I don't—"

"Damn right you don't."

Suddenly, he bit into his wrist, and my eyes widened when I realized what was coming next. "Damon! No!" I shouted, but his wrist, which pressed heavy blood to my mouth, muffled me from continuing. I struggled against his force, but Damon applied so much pressure that I couldn't even move my entire upper body. Thick strands of vampire blood fell down my throat and into my system by sheer force. At last, he pulled away, and I shrieked as I shoved him away, falling back onto the floor in the process.

"How could you?" I shouted up at him, wiping away at my lips. But what was done was done.

Damon looked down at me with victorious, yet emotionless eyes. "You wanted to die, Madeline. Now, if you do, you'll become what you fear most."

I stared at Damon with something that I hadn't felt in forever—terror. He realized it, too, when I swallowed and tried to crawl away from him, afraid.

We were back to square one.

And then I woke up, surrounded by complete and utter darkness once more, my gasps and pants the only sound in my ears.

Please review :)

Love,

BellaSalvatore1918

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