Holy shit. So I sat down to write Obliteration and then somehow, my lines got crossed and I ended up writing this and actually finishing it at a decent (eh...) hour. Which is good and bad at the same time because I really needed to update Obliteration and...you know, I just neglected it. Oops. I'm terrible.

Oh, well. Here's 5x15 for you all. Slight (don't freak out) hiatus for a little bit. Just until the weekend. Not really a hiatus, just more of a warning. Plus, I'll be working on the 200 review treat ASAP, and I'll make sure to close the poll a day or two before I start working on it so you'll all know what won. Right now it's leaning a little towards the entire series re-write with Madeline in it. If you haven't voted, again, make sure to go and cast your vote!

*silently whispers* can we get to 200 reviews? Dang, I wish there was like a "small font" feature on FanFiction, you know? So that it's like little tiny font that no one can read. Oops, sorry. I went a little off task there :)

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Chapter 1 please :)

Gone Girl

I was screaming.

Metaphorically, of course. Well, on the inside, I was screaming. I was screaming to tell the truth…screaming to tell everyone what I knew.

Instead, all I could do was deny.

"You all are insane!" I protested, scoffing. "You would've noticed if Elena was Katherine…or Katherine is Elena…or…" I groaned. "Whatever! You know what I mean!"

"Madeline, you've been compelled," Stefan pleaded with me from the other couch in the parlor. I scoffed on the outside, but on the inside I agreed completely. "Look, obviously if you were compelled, you would definitely not be agreeing right now."

"Because it's not true!" But it is, Stefan, it is!

"Forget the true or not true part," Caroline protested, holding up her hand and shifting forward on the couch. "Look, have you been drinking vervain?"

"No." The word blurted out of my mouth before I could recover it, and at the slip-up, I rejoiced. Caroline sighed, as if she didn't want to believe it was true. "But…wait…if I'm being compelled, like you all ridiculously keep saying that I am, why did I just—"

"It's a loophole," Stefan said, cutting me off as I asked the question. "Katherine compelled you to lie for her…deny that she's taken Elena's body—"

"But she hasn't."

"Right." Stefan nodded, shrugging. "But she didn't compel you to tell people you were drinking vervain."

"And that probably means that she didn't compel you not to drink vervain, either," said another voice, and I turned my head to see Audrey enter the room, shaking a bottle of water in her hand vigorously, as if trying to mix something. "So here you go." She offered me the water, and I looked at it with confusion and hesitantly took it.

"I'm not being compelled," I tried again, but they wouldn't listen to me. Don't listen to me, a voice said in the back of my mind, and with a sigh, I drank the vervain. When it went down, I could feel it sting in the slightest, and it didn't really taste all that good. "Gah. That's so…gross." I shuddered and put the water on the table, sighing. All of a sudden, my phone began to vibrate, and I pulled it out. Stefan, Caroline, and Audrey looked at me like I was receiving a phone call from the freaking White House.

"Relax," I said, eyeing them. "It's just Elena." A.K.A Katherine, I thought, but I answered the phone with a sigh. "Elena. Hey."

"I need you to get over here," Katherine snapped in my ear. "I'll text you the address, but leave wherever you are right now. Got it?"

I looked up at Stefan, Caroline, and Audrey, who all seemed to not know the definition of privacy. I sighed. "Uh…yeah, sure. I'll be there as soon as I can." Without hesitation, I hung up the phone, and I thought to myself, but I didn't feel a sudden urge to do whatever Katherine said.

"You don't feel obligated to go now, do you?" Stefan asked, eyeing me cautiously.

I found words that I was allowed to say. "No, I don't."

Damon stared at the corner of the cell, thinking it all over as Stefan finally finished explaining. "Uh huh…" Damon trailed off, taking it all in. "She's brilliant."

"We haven't noticed that Katherine has been inhabiting Elena's body for weeks, or that she compelled Madeline to be her right-hand woman through it all…and that's all you have to say?" Stefan prompted in disbelief as he straightened against the cell door.

"Yep," answered Damon, who dragged out the answer as he kept replaying Stefan's words in his mind.

"And you do realize that it was Katherine that compelled Madeline to end things…most likely by no choice of her own."

"Thought crossed my mind, Stefan," Damon said sourly, looking up at his brother. "Thanks for the input, though."

"You know," Stefan sighed, inching closer to his brother, "All of this…killing Aaron, kidnapping Jeremy, killing that boy at the bar, attempting to kill Wes but instead getting infected with a ripper virus…that was all because of a reaction to Katherine. You played right into her hands, Damon."

Damon's voice was unusually light. "I'm trying to figure out why you decided to tell a starving, bloodthirsty, vampire ripper that his nemesis is walking around alive and well while I'm stuck in this cell and can't do anything about it."

"I've got it under control."

"Oh, I'd love to hear this."

After Stefan went upstairs and talked to Caroline, he came back down with a measuring cup in his hand and opened the door of the cell to greet his brother. Almost immediately after stepping inside, he bit into his wrist and let the blood flow from his wrist into the measuring tool, eyeing the line of measure so he could get the correct amount. At the first smell of Stefan's enticing blood, Damon's veins slithered underneath his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Stefan examined the measuring cup. "Here you go," he said, giving his brother a tight smile before reaching forward, careful not to get within too much of a severe distance, and handed his brother the cup. "Drink."

Immediately, Damon took the cup and drowned the contents, soothing some of his hunger. He looked up at Stefan with normal eyes now. "I need more."

"Too bad."

"That was nothing."

"That's exactly four ounces. When you were out killing vampires, you said one vampire kept you good for eight hours. So, our friend Caroline did a little bit of math—"

"Caroline?"

"Relax," Stefan soothed. "She had a calculator. Four ounces three times a day should be just enough to manage the hunger." Damon tried desperately to get more from the measuring cup, but nothing else would come from it.

Struggling against his chains, he stumbled up and growled, "You mean manage me."

"So you don't rip anyone's head off," Stefan agreed, earning his brother to grant a sadistic smile. "We'll deal with your crisis once we get Elena back and figure out how to break Madeline's compulsion."

"I'll deal with my own crisis," Damon returned. "Listen, you just let me out of here. I'll find Wes and I'll get the antidote."

"And then what, huh? You skip town? Leave it to me to tell Madeline everything you did after she ended things? No." Damon watched as Stefan pulled out his phone and began to type in a number, which earned a curious look from the iron-restrained brother.

"Who you calling there, buddy?"

"Katherine's been making a lot of excuses and I have a feeling she won't be able to say no to me."

Stefan braced himself to talk to Katherine and pretend to be interested so that they could corner her, but instead, a phone buzzed in his pocket. With a confused expression, Stefan turned around and grabbed his brother's phone from his back pocket and looked at it with curiosity. "It's your phone," Stefan told Damon, turning around with knotted eyebrows. "Elena is calling." He held out the phone for Damon to take. "Answer it."

Damon took the phone with force and pressed the answer button, pulling the phone up to his ear. "Elena," he said, his voice smooth. "Hey."

"Hey," Elena, or Katherine, chirped through the other end of the phone. "Um…how are you?"

"Oh, you know." Damon shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Strung up. Hungry. Same ol', same ol'." He paused. "Why are you calling me, exactly?"

"Well, I…don't know, I guess," Katherine scoffed. "I've just…been doing a lot of thinking. About you…and me."

Damon raised his eyebrows. "What kind of thinking?"

Katherine sighed. "Well, I know that things have been complicated. You know, with you and Madeline. But, it brought me to thinking and…I don't know, I guess I sort of…miss you, Damon." Damon gave an astonished look on the other side of the phone, turning to face his brother who was just about as confused as he was. "And I was wondering if we can see each other. You know…to talk."

But the second Damon found an opportunity, he took it. "Uh, yeah. Okay, sure. Why don't you just come to the house and we'll talk about it here?"

"Perfect. I'll see you soon."

"Bye."

Both Damon and Katherine hung up their phones, and each of them knew that something was wrong.

Katherine turned around at me, but I didn't even noticed that she had been on the phone. I dabbed Nadia's forehead with a towel to try and ease her sweats, repeating what I had done to Damon in my memory from one of the very first nights I woke up. "Something's wrong," she said to us, walking forward. "Damon does not want to get back together with Elena. He wouldn't even consider it. Just because I compelled you doesn't mean that he doesn't still feel the same way," Katherine said, deciphering it all out in her head.

I looked up at her, confused. "Uh…I'm just going to pretend like I know what you're talking about."

Katherine shook her head. "Trust me on this, Damon would not let Elena come over and talk to him…with or without this ripper virus. He told me that he was done with the doppelgängers."

"When did he tell you that?" I asked.

"When I was dying," Katherine said, deep in thought. "But, yet, he's desperate to see her…"

"Just like her other friends," Nadia tagged on, coming to the same realization as Katherine. I looked between the both of them, and something inside me knew, but I fought against it.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I questioned, praying that Katherine wouldn't figure it out.

Katherine looked up at me. "They know," she said, her voice devious.

Oh, shit, I moaned in my head, desperate to believe that Katherine wasn't serious about this. "No," I said, shaking my head, trying to amend their mistake. "Nah. You're just overreacting. Damon might just want to see Elena so that he can let her down easy or something," I tried, but was desperately failing. At an attempt to cover up my concern, I leaned forward and wiped the sweat off of Nadia's forehead.

Katherine didn't buy it. She reached forward and grabbed my hand, making me gasp out of the surprise. "What are you not telling me?" Katherine asked, compelling me. But I didn't fell obligated to tell her everything, so I flat-out lied, keeping my voice flat.

"Nothing."

"What are you not telling me?" Katherine pushed through her teeth.

"Nothing," I repeated, skillfully keeping my voice dull as I had listened to it ten thousand times over when I obliged to Katherine's demands. Katherine frustratedly pulled my arm away, and immediately after she released me, I returned to helping Nadia, keeping an eye on Katherine while she paced.

Suddenly, Katherine inhaled. "Madeline, come here."

"But I'm—"

"Come. Here," Katherine said in a not-so-friendly tone. I gulped, realizing that she was commanding me, not asking me. Leaving the towel to the side so I could walk over to Katherine, I noticed that she was rubbing something in her hand. Instantly, I felt my heart race out of fear and panic. I finally reached her, swallowing hard. "Now," she said softly, grabbing something in the hand that already wasn't clenched. I resisted a flinch when I saw it was a knife. "Take this knife," she said slowly, and her lips began to stretch into a smile as she said happily, "And drive it through your heart."

She extended me the end of the knife, watching as I relaxed from her "compulsion".

She wants me to kill myself? I thought, realizing what a situation everyone else had put me in. No! No, no, no! I won't do it.

But when I looked up at Katherine, I could see that she wasn't joking. If I didn't take the knife in thirty seconds, she would know there was something wrong.

So, with a shaking hand, I took the handle of the blade she extended to me, and I took in a deep breath.

But I wasn't willing to die because of Katherine Pierce.

I lunged forward, the knife going for her, instead, but I didn't manage to get it anywhere near her. Katherine looked like she'd been waiting for the attack, and that's what had given her confirmation. "Oh, you stupid girl," she growled before twisting my hand with just one of hers, causing me to drop the blade that I tried to hold onto. The worst I thought she'd do to me was kill me…maybe just knock me unconscious or something.

But she did nothing of the sort.

Instead, she took that hand that she had been clenching and moved something up so that she could remove its cap with her thumb and forefinger, letting the cap fall to the ground with an echoed drop. "I'm sorry, sunshine, but it has to be done."

"What are you—mm!" I cried out as I was forced to gulp down whatever she had unscrewed and spilled into my mouth, shutting my jaw closed so that I couldn't spit it up. It burned like hell—much more than the vervain this morning or any form of alcohol. Once I was forced to swallow it all, she released me, and I fell to the floor involuntarily, trying to cough up the disgusting liquid that made me feel like I was being eaten on the inside.

"What did you do?" I whispered, doubling over to gag again.

I couldn't see Katherine's face all that clearly, but it almost looked like it pained her to say what she said next—words that made no sense to me.

"Spát dokud probudil."

My mouth fell open, and I could hardly hear anything over the painful ringing. It brought my mind back to that night that I had thought I had fallen into a dream, but this…no, this was real. I could feel it ripple through my entire body, and I could feel myself slipping away.

It was only a matter of seconds when I felt my body give out, my eyes roll behind my head, and my body fall to the floor.

Katherine stared at Madeline's body on the floor, wishing that she hadn't had to do what she had done. It was something she wished she didn't have to do ever since she made that potion as a protection if Madeline ever turned on her or was forced to turn on her.

Nadia looked at her weakly, confused. "'Sleep until awakened'?" she quoted Katherine's words in English, shaking her head. "What kind of a spell was that?"

"A spell to put her to sleep indefinitely," Katherine answered, slowly bringing her eyes up from Madeline's body to face Nadia. "And in the meantime, she'll be right back where she was all along."

Damon yanked the phone right out of Doctor Wes's hand, ending the call as quickly as it was made. Wes turned around with a caught look on his face that practically made Damon rejoice. After all, Wes was the reason he had fed off of Tyler and escaped from the Salvatore house. Without breaking eye contact with the doctor, Damon crushed Wes's phone in his hand and spoke, "What's up, Doc?" he quipped, tilting his head.

"How did you find me?" Wes demanded.

"Well, I called my friend Enzo. Asked him about the little…adventure he had with you." Damon took in a large breath as he looked around. "Gotta say…long way off the tender track, huh? I take it the Augustine Society had a bit of a rough streak?"

"There is no Augustine Society, Damon," Wes returned simply. "It's just me."

A look of surprised crossed Damon's face, but he quickly moved on. "Well, then, I guess you're my guy!" he exclaimed. "You see, I have this long road ahead of me to win my ex-girlfriend back," he began, walking forward, "but I don't have a chance in hell"—Wes stumbled back at Damon's voice inflexion, desperately grasping behind him for stability to keep him from his fear—"if I'm lusting over her magical vampire-mockery blood. You follow?"

"Even if I did cure you of this virus, what difference does it make?" Wes challenged. "So you stop feeding on vampires and go back to feeding on humans? Hate to break it to you, Damon, but just because Madeline's blood is special doesn't mean it still has human qualities," he pointed out. "You really think it's going to matter if you're lusting over her blood as a vampire ripper or just an average vampire?"

An angered Damon reached forward, yanking Wes forward and holding him by the collar of his shirt with no mercy. "Look at me!" Damon snarled, letting his veins snake underneath of his eyes. "You did this to me," he growled.

"I didn't do this to you," countered Wes. "You are this. I simply held up the mirror."

Tired of the conversation, Damon thrust his hand into Wes's chest, making the human grunt over, but Damon didn't let that happen. With a flash, he slammed Wes onto the cold, metal table in the abandoned warehouse that they were standing in. Damon stood over the doctor, smiling vindictively. "It's my turn to play doctor."

He ripped his hand from Wes's chest, the blood staining his right hand. He reached over to see the tools laying on a platter, just begging him to take one. So, without further ado, Damon picked the weapon of his choice—the scalpel—and leaned forward, cutting into the human's eye with absolutely no mercy or regret.

"I'm just saying…I don't think we should start school so early in the morning," I pointed out to my friend, Vanessa. "If they really want us to learn, they should do it at a decent hour. You know, one where everyone won't be sleeping in class."

Vanessa laughed. "I don't think the hour is the problem, Mads, I just think it's the people."

"Well, you don't know that!" I exclaimed frustratedly as we rounded a corner to my locker. "I mean, the smartest kid in the entire world could be sleeping in class right now just because we start early in the morning. That's not fair, is it?"

"Well, if he was really the smartest kid in the world, he'd have a legitimate reason to sleep, anyway. 'Cause he'd know everything," argued Vanessa, and I just rolled my eyes and shook my head, realizing that I was getting nowhere with her.

But out of the corner of my eye, I could see someone walk down the hallways that I'd never seen before. Which was…strange. Real strange.

I jerked my head towards him. "Who's he?" I asked Vanessa without taking my eyes off of him. Vanessa turned around to see who I was talking about, and I kept my eyes plastered on him as she turned around and gasped at me.

"Didn't you hear?" she demanded, almost excitedly. "It's the new guy! He's a senior. I don't know his name yet, but he's like, totally gorgeous. I saw him get dropped off this morning."

I raised my eyes and forced myself to tear them away from the new kid's back, and I fit my books into my locker. "It's not every day we get a new student," I chorused.

"No, it's not. Which is totally unfair because now everyone's going to be going after him…but I think I might have a chance."

I scoffed. "Good luck with that, Vanessa," I said just as the bell rang, signaling the brutally early start of school. "I'll see you later."

"Bye," she said, walking off in the other direction. I closed my locker and fixed the strap on my bag before continuing towards the direction of the new senior, not that it was any choice of my own. I had Mrs. Baker for first period, and her classroom was down the side of the hallway that he happened to be standing on.

I didn't anticipate anything—really, I didn't—but, me being me, I obviously faltered. Really, it was dumb and unnecessary, and I'm pretty sure to anyone else, it would've looked like I tripped on purpose. But to me, I had tripped over my own feet by a complete accident…and it wasn't the first time, either.

"Oh. Shit, sorry," the boy apologized to me, holding me steady by the arms. "Are you…okay?"

"Huh?" I said, completely lost for a moment. His eyes held mine, and I felt like I was staring into a river or something. They were so…clear. I cleared my throat and backed up. "Oh! Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Sorry about that. Klutz territory over here," I breathed.

The senior laughed. "Yeah, well, everybody's got to be a klutz sometime," he offered, smiling. I smiled back, oddly, but after a moment, he dropped his smile. "Uh…well, try not to fall into anyone else's arms today. Someone might get the wrong idea about that, you know?"

I scoffed, but I was still completely lost. "Yeah," I said, the corner of my mouth twitching up for a moment. After another moment of his eyes holding mine, he slipped past me, and I stared after him in confusion for a split second, just thinking. But, of course, that's when I realized that I needed to get to class or I'd be late.

I was—luckily—in my seat just in time for the bell to ring and Mrs. Baker begin her first-day-back speech. AP Chemistry…AP Chemistry…a whole lot of AP Chemistry, basically. But about five minutes into it, someone opened the door, and in stepped the senior who helped me in the hallway. Mrs. Baker stopped her beginning speech so that she could talk to the new senior, and as everyone else chattered with the people at their lab tables, I focused in on them. Vanessa was right…I mean, I wouldn't deny the facts. He was actually quite…handsome, I guess. Does handsome still work? Maybe, maybe not. Oh, well. To be honest, he looked like a guy right out of some movie or something. Dark, disheveled yet tamed hair…the gorgeous blue eyes that I'd been hooked into…and simply just the way his face looked.

I didn't even notice it, I guess, but as I tapped my pencil against the lab table, Mrs. Baker pointed to the empty seat beside me—the only empty seat in the classroom. With swiftness, the senior began to move to the table, and I straightened immediately. He smiled at me before sitting down on the high stool and putting his bag on the ground. Neither one of us said a word before Mrs. Baker said them for us.

"Now if you'll turn to the person sitting next to you and introduce yourselves, please. I'll give you five minutes to get acquainted with your permanent new lab partner." She said the words with emphasis, letting everyone know that they were stuck with the person they were seated by. There were groans around the room—maybe some squeals. Not me, though. I tapped my pencil against the desk nervously.

"So what should I call you?" the senior asked me, turning his body to face me. "Klutz?"

I let a small laugh escape my lips. "Madeline would work, too."

The senior smiled. "Madeline," he agreed. "I'm Damon," he introduced himself.

I thought it over. "Damon?" I repeated it aloud, earning him to nod. "Damon," I confirmed, nodding my head and shrugging. "All right, then." I gave him a smile, and he gave me one back.

When he was finished with Wes, finally giving him the pleasure of dying—though it was anything but peaceful—Damon wiped his hands clean of the blood, but he was anything but happy. Wes had said nothing of an antidote for the virus, and his own impulsions kept him from pushing harder in order to get what he wanted.

But then he heard something.

Bum bum.

Bum bum.

Bum bum.

The sound was so familiar. He could spot it from a mile away.

"Madeline?" Damon whispered in confusion, letting himself get pulled in the direction of the heartbeat, where it became louder and louder to him—clearer and clearer. It was when he was standing over her unconscious body, watching as her stomach moved up and down in even breathing, when he had confirmed his thoughts aloud, sighing. "Madeline."

"So what should I call you? Klutz?"

"Madeline would work, too."

"Madeline. I'm Damon."

Damon smirked to himself, letting a small laugh escape his lips as he bent down and picked the small girl up into his arms, her slump body resting against his chest. "Dreaming about me yet again, sweet Madeline?" he mumbled, looking down at her. "I guess old habits do die hard."

And he thought for a moment, for a split moment, if she actually ended things because she wanted to.

But then he pushed the thought out of his mind and walked out to face the woman who had done this in the first place.

Katherine shut the eyes of her dead, desiccated daughter, one sole tear drifting down from her eye onto her cheek. Without a word, she covered Nadia's face with the blanket she was put in, and she knew there was no getting out of this. Everyone behind her was waiting for her to die, and they would get what they wanted. Somehow, they always did when it came to protecting Elena.

Too bad they couldn't save Madeline. At least, not yet.

Katherine rose from her position, clearing her eyes so that no one could see her weakness. "So," she sighed, turning around to face Jeremy, Bonnie, Caroline, Tyler, Matt, and Stefan, who all said nothing. "This is it."

Again, silence enveloped the room, and Katherine took that as her opportunity. With a flash of speed, she opened the door and braced to run, only to be stopped.

Everyone in the parlor turned around to see Damon at the threshold between the door and the outside world, his body—and Madeline's unconscious one—trapping her inside. "Hello, Katherine," Damon said deviously with a small smirk. Katherine ran her tongue over her teeth, now realizing that it was over. "You didn't think I'd miss this, did you?" He walked forward, making her step back, and Damon carefully kept Madeline safe from the walls that could harm her unconscious state. With his foot, Damon shut the door, and looked down at the human girl in his arms. "Ah, I'll bet Madeline will be furious when she finds out that she did. Probably so many things she'd like to say to you. After all, you're like the tenth person to knock her out cold."

Katherine scoffed, and she kept the secret to herself that Madeline wasn't just unconscious. She turned around to face the rest of the group, and behind her, Damon set Madeline down on the floor for the time being. "Okay," she said, crossing her arms and sighing. "So…who's got the knife? Which one of you are going to get to kill the elusive Katherine Pierce once and for all?"

No one said anything.

"What?" Katherine asked, throwing her hands up. "Suddenly, everyone's speechless?" She scoffed. "When I was on my deathbed, you all had plenty to say."

No one said anything.

So, naturally, Katherine continued. She looked at Tyler first. "Is it you? Tyler? Because I triggered the werewolf curse? Gave you an identity and made you matter?"

"You've done nothing for me," retorted the hybrid.

"Oh, please," Katherine argued. "Tyler. If I hadn't walked into your life, you'd just be a wasted nobody with a boozy mom and a temper problem."

Tyler moved forward, perhaps to make a move, but Caroline stopped him, placing a hand on her chest and whispering, "Don't. Don't."

Katherine smiled, shifting her attention to Caroline. "And you. I'm not worried about you offing me. We both know I made you better by making you a vampire."

Caroline resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and though it was true, it didn't make her hate Katherine any less. "Goodbye, Katherine."

"Bye-bye, Caroline." Katherine shifted her attention yet again to face Audrey, who stood next to Stefan, holding his hands. Katherine saw the gesture, and she realized.

With a snicker, she began again, "Oh, Audrey. Oh, sweet, innocent little Audrey. No, I don't believe you would off me, either. But, then again, I did kiss your boyfriend, who thought I was Elena."

Audrey, clearly shocked by the confession, tried her hardest to cover up how Katherine was making her react. Katherine watched as Stefan turned, but said nothing, and she immediately ripped his hand out of hers. Katherine smiled at the gesture. "Yeah. I figured it would be more of a you problem than a me problem."

Audrey scoffed. "Do you realize how pathetic all this makes you sound?"

Katherine shrugged. "Pathetic or not, he"—Katherine turned to look at Stefan—"still kissed me when I thought I was Elena. Don't be angry, I was just giving you guys some pillow talk conversation. God knows you need it," she muttered, and brushed past Audrey to go to Matt, who stood behind her.

"Oh," Katherine made a painful sound at Matt as she put her hands on his shoulders. "The only…conscious girl here who actually appreciates how beautiful you are." Katherine paused for a moment. "Wait, scratch that. Even Madeline didn't appreciate it when she had it." With a chuckle, Katherine continued, "You wouldn't stab me in the heart, would you, Mattie blue?" He didn't answer. "Nah, I don't think so. You will definitely go down as the best night I never had." She pulled away, lowering her eyes. "Oh, well."

"Oh, well," Matt agreed.

Katherine moved onto Jeremy next. "Well, little Gilbert," she began, sighing. "It was nice to have a brother for a second, there." She paused. "When you weren't being so damn annoying." She turned to face Bonnie, but sighed instead, "Bon-Bon, there's no need for goodbyes—I'll see you on the flipside."

Finally, Katherine came face to face with Damon, a little ways away from his space at the stairs of the parlor, Madeline's body lying just a few feet from his position. Katherine crossed her arms. "Damon," she began. "Oh, how you would love nothing more than to drive that blade right though me."

Damon shook his head. "We've already done this, Kitty Kat." He crossed his own arms, repeating her stance. "I've said all I've needed to say."

"Yeah, but I never got to say what I needed to say to you." Silence passed, and Katherine debated her words carefully. "I'm sorry. You blame me for who you are…and I'm sorry." She walked forward. "I'm sorry that I turned you. I'm sorry that…you didn't get to die as a forgotten nobody on a bloody battlefield and that your father didn't get to live another day to be disgraced by you. Damon, I'm sorry that I gave your life purpose. Passion. Drive. Desire." She smiled up at him, though it was bitterly sweet. "I'm sorry that you are who you are because I'm the one that taught you how to love."

Things were silent for just a moment before Damon spoke in response to her confession, "I'll see you in hell, Kat," he said, giving her a small, bittersweet smile. She winked at him and turned to face the other Salvatore brother in the room, and she stopped cold.

"Stefan," she breathed slowly, taking her time before continuing, "You know, I always wondered what it'd be like to be loved by you. You've got to admit…for that one fleeting moment…your feelings were real." Katherine and Stefan both dipped their heads before she continued, looking right into his emerald eyes. "This truly has been the role of a lifetime." She paused, inhaling deeply. "Stefan, I love you. I've always loved you."

Everything was still for a moment before the rest of the people standing in the room witnessed as Katherine leaned forward and pressed her lips to Stefan's for just a split second. But when he had her, that's when he…had her.

Stefan Salvatore drove the traveler knife into Elena's body, officially ending Katherine Pierce once and for all.

She clutched onto him for dear life, but she knew that this was how it would end. Everyone didn't need to know that Stefan had the traveler knife for them to really know that it would be Stefan to kill her. He yanked out the knife. "Then I guess this is how our love story ends," Katherine gasped, and she soon fell to the floor. Matt and Stefan both tried to help her, but she staggered away from them and stumbled over Nadia, pulling the blanket down to reveal Nadia's dead body as she began to die, herself. Katherine's breaths were ragged as she fought against it, but there was no stopping it.

Once the black shades shifted in her eyes and then disappeared, they all knew that she was gone. But, then, she closed her eyes and stopped her groaning, and all was silent.

"Quantized."

"Electrons can only exist at certain energy levels."

"Electron negativity."

"Adams or radicals attract electrons in an ionic bond."

"Oh, God," Damon groaned, throwing his head up to face the clouded sky. "A junior is going to do ten times better than me on this midterm!"

"Oh, come on," I argued, shaking my head at him. "It can't be that bad! Here, give me the flashcards." I grabbed them from his hands and began to shuffle them as we walked along the sidewalk, leisurely taking a stroll during the cool, partly cloudy day. Damon watched as I shuffled the cards and picked a random one.

"Okay, this is easy," I said, turning to him as I walked. "Molarity."

"Uh…that one with the concentration of a solution?"

"That's molality, but…nice try," I complimented. "Here, let's do another one." I shuffled the cards again and picked out another card. "Lewis."

"Is that the one with the…uh…defined acids or…something?" Damon looked at me like I was supposed to have the answer written on my face, and I tried to let him down easy.

"Uh…well…I mean, it does have something to do with acid! You were right about that." Damon scoffed, shaking his head. "Look, you'll do fine! Promise."

"Hey, hey, don't make a promise that you can't keep," Damon argued, turning to me and causing us to stop.

"I'm not making a promise that I can't keep! Trust me, Damon, you'll do well," I said, nodding at him. Damon looked like he was deciphering something, and I waited for him to come up with whatever he wanted to say.

"All right, well how about we bet on it, then?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. In return, I did the same, but not out of challenging, out of curiosity. "If I get above an eighty on the midterm, I'll take you out to dinner. If I get below an eighty…" He shrugged. "I'll still take you out to dinner."

I laughed. "That's a very…mm…subtle way to ask me out?" I stated, but it sounded more like a question, I guess.

Damon shrugged. "Well, did it work?"

I thought about it for a second, actually considering saying yes. But, something inside of me snapped, and I shook my head. "Uh…no," I said, avoiding his eyes. "Sorry, I just…I can't."

"Madeline—"

"Why don't we just keep studying, okay?" I asked, giving him a warm smile, trying to push the thought out of my mind. But he looked at me in such a fragile way…like he was confused over it. But I waited, not wanting to continue the previous topic, and Damon sighed, nodding slowly.

"Yeah," he agreed, stepping aside so that we could walk again. "Sure."

"Damon!"

Damon snapped his head up in confusion to face his brother standing beside him, confused. "I've been calling you for the last ten minutes. Has she woken up yet?" Stefan asked, looking to see Madeline on his bed, her breathing even.

Damon, still rattled, cleared his throat. "Uh…no. No, she hasn't. Hey, Stefan…you haven't…happened to…by any chance at all unconsciously slipped into a dream before, have you? I mean, with me, I always have to try, but…" Damon looked down at Madeline, completely frazzled.

"Uh…no. Every vampire has to try, Damon, it doesn't just happen. What's going on?"

Before Damon could get the chance to answer, there was a knock on the door. Audrey walked inside, peering around Stefan and Damon to see Madeline's sleeping body. "She awake yet?" Both brothers shook their heads. Audrey sighed. "God, how long has she been out?"

"Katherine must've hit her hard," Stefan shrugged, but the awkwardness in the room did not go unnoticed.

Audrey shook her head and scoffed. "Uh…no, Stefan. That's not how it works. If Damon found her when he said he found her, she should've been up an hour ago. No one goes this long unconscious unless they're in a coma or something…" she said, shaking her head again at the confusion surrounding the statement.

"Well, is she?" Damon asked, watching as Audrey made her way over to Madeline. "In a coma?"

"No, of course not. Her blood should heal her from that—really, it should heal her from a concussion if Katherine really did knock her out, but…" All of a sudden, she spotted something, and Stefan and Damon watched as she pulled something out of Madeline's back pocket and gasped.

"What is it?" Stefan asked, coming behind her. Damon did, as well, but the words on the page were all gibberish to them…written in a foreign language.

"Oh, shit," cursed Audrey. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!"

"What the hell are you rambling about, Red?" Damon questioned abrasively, and Audrey immediately snapped her head to him.

"Katherine did this," she said slowly, shaking her head again. "She must've. She wanted us to all believe that she was only unconscious, but…"

"But what?" Damon growled, losing patience for his answer.

Audrey took in a deep breath. "She sent her back, Damon," she said simply. Damon waited for a further explanation. "Katherine…Katherine sent her back to an alternate reality. She used the simple spell, the one that doesn't require her death. It puts her in a state of indefinite sleep until her body finds the will to wake up."

"Which will be…?" Stefan prompted, and Audrey turned her head at him.

"It's indefinite for a reason," was all she said. Damon sat down on the bed, thinking it all over.

And now it made sense.

"Hey, Stef," Damon said without pulling his eyes up to meet his brother's. "You remember two seconds ago when I asked you if it were possible for a vampire to automatically get sucked into a dream without trying?"

"Uh…yeah…"

Damon shook his head and pursed his lips, keeping his eyes marked on Madeline. "It wasn't a dream," he almost sang, and this time, Audrey caught on.

"You were the one she chose this time," Audrey said, slowly realizing. Damon nodded carefully.

"What are you talking about?" Stefan asked, completely lost.

Damon gave a pained expression as he realized that, no. Old habits didn't die hard…or, they did, just not in the case he thought they did. "Katherine sent Madeline into an alternate reality." He paused. "And she took me with her."

Not a substantially long chapter, but it'll have to do. I really didn't want to do all of those little scenes, you know? Like the ones that I don't have to change all that much.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, though! Please make sure to leave a review at the end. No pressure, but...10 reviews from 200! Think we can do it?

I'll update ASAP! Remember to look out for the new story whenever you get a chance, you know. I might actually put an Author's note...actually, let me know if you do want an author's note about the story so I can get a gage on who needs it or not. I'll just do the same thing like I did for Chapter 14 and delete the author's note a few days later and replace it with the new chapter. The notifications worked for everyone, right?

Anyways...until later!

Love,

BellaSalvatore1918

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