Please read the note at the bottom of the chapter as it is very important to the progression of this story. Enjoy the chapter, everyone, and my apologies for the very long delay.

Disclaimer: Chapter 1 please :)

I Alone

I stared at the embers of the fire burning bright and cackling loud in the farthest center of our dorm room. My mind was blank, my thoughts clear of all thoughts known to mankind, and there was only the feeling of complete serenity inside of me. I waited for something, though that something was extremely unclear to me. It was then as I stared at the sparks of the fire as they fed from the wood that I felt someone come up behind me, tilt my neck to the side, and start to press tiny, soft kisses on my skin. I shut my eyes, reveling in the burning desire I could feel begin to harbor. A hand came around my waist and then instantly, I was whirled around, my eyes forced open. I stumbled for just a moment to find Damon's electrical blue eyes burning into mine with a passion I couldn't begin to describe. At a loss for words, I just stared as his hand twisted into my hair and he forced me closer, not completely against my will, and kissed me so hard I was afraid I'd collapse right into his arms. I'd never wanted anything so much in my life, it was strange; stranger than strange, in fact. To be honest, I thought I'd forgotten how to kiss, but Damon made it so easy. His lips drove our kiss and I fell slack to his touch for a moment or two until I fully comprehended what I was doing and tried to mimic his movements. I could hear him make a throaty sound and as a result, I kissed him more deeply than I was sure I'd ever kissed a man in my entire life. My whole body felt ignited, like just a single touch could spark a thousand flames. And then, my breath caught sharply as he pushed me away, turned my back to his front and started to push the strap of my shirt down my shoulder.

In my ear, I could hear his hefty breathing that caused goosebumps to raise all over my skin at the heat of his breath. My back arched into him and he realized the effect it had on me. I could almost feel the smirk against my ear as his hand moved from the exposed skin on my shoulder, running down the length of my arm and finally moving to clasp around my waist and ever so slightly inched to the right and—

I woke with shallow breaths, a thick layer of sweat collecting on my forehead. I found myself in an empty dorm room, pin-drop silent excluding the sounds of my lengthy breathing. I felt as if I were drenched in water, but I knew I wasn't; my entire skin felt as if it were on fire, but it was only a result from regulating body temperature overnight. Tossing my covers aside, I swung my shaking legs out of bed and planted them on the floor, sitting for a moment deep in thought. I was barely able to collect myself, seeing as my mouth was dry, my palms clammy, and my judgement impaired. The gold cuff on my wrist seemed to weigh more than it should as a result of the added precipitation on my skin. What the hell was wrong with me? When the hell did I start having sex dreams? Let alone sex dreams about Damon Salvatore...

"You missed our family run this morning."

The moment Elena walked into the room, I jolted upright on my feet and turned around to face her with a quick intake. She paused and watched me carefully as I swallowed thickly. "W-What?"

Elena set her phone down on the chest beside the door with caution as she surveyed me. "Jeremy and I went for a run. I was going to wake you, but..." I could see her try to hide a smile. "You had other things on your mind, I suppose."

I crossed my heated arms over my chest. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that you kept mumbling 'Damon' in your sleep last night." Elena giggled quietly. "'Damon, oh Damon, oh Damon...'"

"I haven't talked in my sleep since I was ten!" I shouted angrily at her. Elena bit down on her lip and walked forward, taking her hair out of her sweaty ponytail. "You're lying! I...I wasn't even dreaming about Damon, if you must know! I was dreaming about...performing an appendectomy." I gulped and watched as Elena looked at me, seeing right through my lie. Quickly, I cleared my throat and moved on. "So did you tell Jeremy about Bonnie or what?"

We'd agreed to let our little brother know what we were planning since...well, since it primarily involved his dead girlfriend. Since I apparently missed our family bonding this morning, Elena was generous enough to fill me in. All thoughts of my previous actions faded away from her mind as she took in a long-winded sigh and mumbled, "Jeremy doesn't think we can do it. Thinks we're just giving him false hope. He wants to move on."

"Well you should tell Little Gilbert to hold off for a while." Elena and I turned to find Damon as he pushed aside the door to our dorm and walked in without so much as an invitation. He strode in like he owned the place, and it was completely and totally unfair. What gave him the right to think he could go walking around town looking like he did? God, he frustrated the hell out of me. I made sure to make it clear as I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to stare coldly into his sultry gaze. He pulled out a complex circular object from his pocket with a smirk. "Behold, the ascendant."

Though he said the words dramatically, Elena gasped out of genuine surprise. "You got it? How?!"

Damon's smirk never faltered. "I have my ways." His eyes transferred to me and, for a moment, I could see him hesitate and his smile begin to falter for a small moment before he continued smoothly. "Get dressed, Sunshine. We've got some saving to do."

"I'm gonna...go take a shower." Elena walked to the in-dorm bathroom and just before she came to the door, she let out a long-winded sigh and turned around at us with a reluctant look on her face. "You know what...I really think that I should stay back here. You two should handle this. I want to make sure that Jeremy's okay...with everything that he's been through."

"But Elena..." I trailed off, uncomfortable with the idea of being alone with Damon all day in another world, no less. She shook her head at me.

"No 'buts', Madeline. Bring Bonnie home." With a curt nod, she walked into the shower and closed the door. Once the water was running, Damon turned from looking towards Elena's direction to back at looking at me. He didn't move an inch, but just kept smiling like an idiot. I felt my mouth dry out, but I couldn't let him have the satisfaction of getting underneath my skin. My eyes flickered to the door.

"I thought you wanted me to change."

"I do."

"Get out and I will." I smiled softly at him, causing his lips to turn down facetiously. I waved my hand at him dismissively. "Come on, Damon, just...shoo. I don't have time for games."

"Did you just shoo me?" I flashed over to him and used my hand on his chest to push him out of the room, despite his dramatic and overzealous protests. My strength overpowered his and soon, I had the door of our room shut in his face and locked. I could hear his breathy chuckle on the other side of the wood and then his footsteps as he walked away to presumably go wait in the car. As I could hear him walk, I turned around against the door, closed my eyes, and leaned on it for support.

He had only been back for so long and he was already driving me insane.

"What could Matt possibly want with Stefan?" I asked, my voice full of bewilderment as we walked through the cemetery on the edge of Mystic Falls to meet up with Liv, whom Damon recruited to help get Bonnie out of the prison world. He shrugged.

"I don't know. It's Matt. Food? Money? New social class? Whatever it is, it can't be good for distracting my brother from his sizable screw-up with Audrey; after all, both idiots are in love with her." I felt Damon turn to me. "Did you know about that? Matt and Audrey?"

"Caroline found out about it at this party Elena hosted at the swimming hole." What a fun day that was. Trying not to think too much about the blind date my sister made me go on, I continued, "I think she was a little upset about it...you know, Matt being her ex and all. But I guess he makes Audrey happy. Though I always thought Stefan was the one who made her happy...guess I was a little off there. But Elena keeps telling me that it doesn't matter who she's with, just as long as she's happy."

I said the words with bitterness; my overly compassionate sister was a little annoying when it came to love lives...specifically love triangles considering her own history. Honestly, I was rooting for Stefan but hey...what did I know? I hardly kept up on the soap opera lately. The whole 'who loves who' game wasn't fun, it was old. Surprisingly, Elena managed to keep herself out of it for a while. Good for her. She's the one who really needed it.

"Hmm." Damon nodded cautiously. "Even if she compels away all the things she likes about them?"

I wanted to respond, but he had me there. So instead of replying, I came to a slow as Damon and I reached Liv at Bonnie's grave in the cemetery. I mustered as much of a smile as I could towards the blonde witch. "I guess this is the part where we thank you for doing this?"

"Don't worry about it," Liv said flatly as she stood and faced us. "I needed an excuse to get out of that frat house. Way too much boy. Gross." She looked over at Damon. "You got everything?"

"Yep." Damon handed her a vial of blood and the ascendant. "Blood from a Bennett, Lucy to be exact, and an ascendant from...whatever the hell your last name is."

She scowled. "Parker. So this is the famous ascendant?"

"Yep."

"Surprised that Jo gave it up."

"Why?" I asked. She shrugged at me.

"It's the only thing keeping Kai locked in his prison. If he gets out, he's coming after Jo."

Immediately, I sensed something wrong beside me. Damon had tensed, slipping his hands into his pockets uncomfortably as he tried desperately to remain cool. I was confused beyond belief, but what the hell did I know? I didn't do emotion.

"Well...good old Jo..." He laughed awkwardly. Definitely wrong. "Helping us out. Can we do this? Please?"

"Whatever. So I'm gonna need the moon to activate the ascendant," Liv barreled on. "It'll be viable for about 8 hours so once I send you over, the clock's ticking."

"What's the execution plan?" I sighed the question. Witches and their tricks, like the annoying cuff on my hand. Magic was a pain sometimes. Liv reached forward and extended a small vial of dark rich liquid that was no doubt human blood.

"Drink these."

"What is that?" Damon asked.

"It's my blood. It will link you to me so I can find you and bring you back. Give this one to Bonnie, too." Damon and I both opened a vial as Liv handed Damon two and gave me only one. Damon sniffed it cautiously and I stared at the blood, trying to contain the hunger I could feel itching away. She watched the two of us as we reluctantly held the blood but did nothing with it. "Are you waiting for a toast? Drink."

Damon reached out and toasted my vial of blood and we both drank every last drop without a problem. Damon licked his lips.

"Mm. Bitter. Wonder why." He turned to me and extended a hand. "Shall we?"

I took it, reluctantly but eventually, and Liv handed Damon the ascendant to which she poured the vial that Damon had originally handed her and I touched the back of his hand so that we were connected in a circle. She started to chant the spell, and as she did, the ascendant began to make a turning noise and there was a bright light that enveloped us. I felt my hand become cold from being slipped out of Damon's and we both stood on the other side of that bright light, alone without Liv or Elena's presence.

"This is so strange," I murmured under my breath. Damon scoffed.

"You don't know the half of it. Keep your eyes peeled, there's a pork rind-munching freak around here somewhere around here." His eyes locked with mine. "You ready to find Bonnie?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay." His eyes flickered to the other side of the cemetery leading into Mystic Falls. I was weary, but in 1994, there was no anti-magic spell. It was beyond strange, but he started to walk towards it so I followed in his lead. "Come on."

We managed to shout Bonnie's name all around the town square, then the not-burnt-down Grill, and finally we came to the Salvatore Boarding House and looked around there. Over and over again, we shouted Bonnie's name, looking up and down and left and right for anywhere she could be. Damon and I split up to cover the large household, and when we finally met, it was in the parlor. With a defeated sigh, I walked from the dining room into the parlor as we met gazes.

"Nothing!" He threw his hands up. "You?"

"If I had, Bonnie would be at my side now, wouldn't she?" Frustratedly, I fell down onto the couch with my head tilted up towards the ceiling as I groaned and rubbed my eyes free of exhaust. "I looked in every room. Twice. Plus, I checked the basement. What if...what if Kai—"

"Look," he interrupted me, "let's not jump to depressing conclusions yet, okay?"

"But Damon—" I shifted myself so that I was looking down back at a leveled view and I turned around at him as he poured himself a glass of bourbon. Just as I did, I could smell something peculiar...something that wasn't supposed to be where we were. Blood. Following the scent, I looked to my right and saw that lying just a few inches away was a pillow, splattered with a bloodstain on white fabric. My eyes went wide. "No! No, no, no, no!"

I looked up at Damon, whose piercing blue eyes stared right through the pillow with a hard stare as he came to realize what I did. He swallowed visibly. "Is that...?"

"Yes."

"...And we're jumping." Squaring his jaw, he turned around with a sigh and grabbed an archaic phone from a few feet away. When he turned back, he said aloud, "If Kai has Bonnie, we need to talk."

"Okay. So we call him and we set up a time to meet?" I suggested. Damon shook his head.

"Not call. Page." He looked up at me and shook his head. "Sorry. Forgot, you were three in 1994. Pagers are an ancient form of telecommunication."

"I got a 2360 on my SAT, Damon. I know what a pager is." He peered up at me cautiously and observed my unamused expression and, knowing I was too proud to admit that I didn't know how it worked, sighed at me and shrugged.

"Okay...well in case you don't know how it works, I will dial the jackass's number—555-HIYA-KAI—" He made a face and held the phone to his ear, listening for a beep. Once he heard it, he brought the phone back down to his side. He dialed something on the keypad. "We leave our number...and then, we hang up."

With a smile, he set the phone down on the alcohol tray as I positioned myself more comfortably so I could face him. "So...now we just...?"

"Now we sit by the phone like a 13-year-old girl and wait." He grinned and drank a sip of his bourbon as I reluctantly leaned back against the couch and followed his lead. We mostly sat in silence for a while but I heard Damon eventually leave the room to do something, and when he was gone, I decided that I didn't want to sit around anymore. I got up from the couch and started to wonder with curious, idle hands. I don't know why or how it happened, but I ended up staring at a video camera hidden in a cabinet pushed up against the wall of the parlor. I had never been technology savvy, but the old clunker was just too good of a chance to pass up. Finally figuring out how to get it working, I pressed a button and watched as the screen on the tiny ancient video camera glowed to life. The picture of Damon in the awfully lighted parlor with the fire glowing behind him came upon the screen along with a line of commands at the bottom.

"Well," said the screen Damon, "I am officially in hell. This place is...my own...personal...hell..."

"Whoa!" Suddenly, I felt the camera snatched from my hands and I whipped around to find Damon holding it captive from my reach. I frowned and crossed my arms at him after a outburst protest. Grimacing, I tapped my foot.

"Seriously? Snatching is rude. What the hell was that, anyways?" I asked.

He stammered, "It's...my...audition tape for 'Real World: London'!" Damon laughed teasingly. "Fingers crossed, I think I'm finally gonna make it!"

I rolled my eyes. "Really? Because...to me, it looked like a video journal."

He scoffed. "What? No. Journals are lame! Especially video ones. Though..." I watched his eyes move up and down the length of me. "Yours wasn't that lame."

I straightened. "Since when did I have a journal?"

Damon laughed. "Come on, don't you..." He trailed off for a moment, his smile turning into a hard line on his face as he hissed, "Oh, right. The only reason you wrote that journal was because it was a joke about our relationship. Figures."

"What would make you think that this place was your own personal hell?" I moved on from his foul comment and watched as he laughed again, trying to play whatever I'd seen off as a joke.

"Well, I mean because I was stuck here with Bonnie." He smirked. "What could be worse than that?"

I shook my head at him and tried not to laugh. "We both know that's not true."

Right as he was about to respond, a flirtatious one-liner, I imagined, the phone in Damon's hand started to ring. Without missing a beat, Damon answered it and pulled the phone right up to his ear with a hard breath. "Kai, if you so much as hurt one hair on her annoying little witch head, I will kill you and then—"

"That was so sweet." Both Damon and I tensed at Bonnie's voice. "Why'd you have to ruin it by calling me annoying?"

"Oh, my God..." Damon mumbled under his breath in shock as he realized it was Bonnie's voice on the other line. His eyes caught mine and he extended the phone towards me, where I quickly took it and pressed it up to my ear.

"Bonnie?" I asked, speaking into the receiver. I could hear Bonnie's breath shake for a moment.

"Mads?" Damon and I both smiled at each other. "Madeline, is that you?!"

"Y-Yes! Yeah, it's me, Bonnie! 1994 and all..." I looked around the Salvatore house wearily. Nothing really had changed, which was supposed to be odd, but rather comforting.

I could hear Bonnie's tearful laugh on the other hand. "I can't believe I'm hearing your voice right now! How are you here?"

"Um...um..." I tried to come up with a response, but the clock was ticking. I shook my head. "It's a long, incredibly complicated story that ends up with the same punchline. All that matters right now is that Damon and I are here to bring you home."

Once the hype of the reuniting between the two of us was over, Damon and I walked to the kitchen, where we put the archaic-style phone on speaker and Damon pulled out a map so he could locate Bonnie while she spoke. Bonnie began to tell us the story of the events after she sacrificed herself to save Damon when he last saw her.

"Kai left you in Portland," I summarized. She made a sound of agreement.

"Mmhmm. After cooking me Thanksgiving spaghetti and stealing my blood. It's been a strange few days."

"Do you have any idea where he went?"

"I...don't know. I hot-wired a car and I'm on my way back to Mystic Falls."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Bonnie Bennett hot-wired...a car?"

"Yeah. I'm a badass, apparently."

"You should put that on a plaque." I scoffed. Bonnie laughed at the joke, but her laugh trailed off at the end as I could hear her thinking.

"Yep...a badass...in Muncie."

"Well, Muncie's about six and a half hours away, give or take a knuckle," Damon spoke up as he traced the lines on the map. "Parker girl's pulling us out in seven. If you don't stop to use the little witch's room anymore..."

"I can make it in time," Bonnie finished hopefully. There wasn't a doubt in my head at the smile on her face. "I'm coming home."

Damon and I looked at each other, where we both smiled hearing the faith in Bonnie's voice. I nodded, though Bonnie couldn't see. "Yes, Bonnie. You're coming home. Now take that badass up a notch. Think you can go 150 on the highway?"

"I can try," she replied. I smiled.

"Then we'll see you soon."

"Okay." Bonnie and I both ended the call, and when it was over, I looked up to find Damon more pensive than he was happy about rescuing Bonnie at last. It was weird, but the moment I glanced over his features, I knew what was wrong. That rarely ever happened.

"You're worried about Kai, aren't you?" I prompted him. Damon looked around the room wearily.

"He's got Bonnie's blood and the Ascendant...he's got everything he needs to get out." Damon locked eyes with me. "What if he's already out?"

I didn't know Kai. I didn't spend four months in a prison world developed for him. Though a little vague on the details, I only had to have common sense to know that a person worthy enough to be trapped in a frozen, desolate world for the rest of eternity was evil enough to cause eons of problems if he was ever released. And in that moment, where I looked into Damon's concerned eyes, I preyed, though I knew little about the circumstances, that what he was thinking hopefully wasn't what happened.

While Damon and I waited for Bonnie to get back to Mystic Falls, we decided to have brunch in the boarding house. He offered to make pancakes, and he did, surprisingly efficient in doing so. As I decorated the pancakes on my plate, I heard him pop open a bottle of champagne and while I turned around to grab another plate for Damon's brunch, I could hear him try to pull a fast one on me. He flipped a pancake up in the air and attempted to catch me off guard, but I flashed around and caught the pancake with the plate in my hand, perfectly centered. Damon gave me an appreciative look and I smiled slyly at him while he flipped another pancake onto the plate and I caught it yet again with the cat-like movement I harbored in my muscles.

We finally ended up settling down at the table, where Damon set my plate in front of me and, while he moved to the seat across from mine at the table, stated dramatically, "Bon appétit!"

"Wait a minute. You rushed my masterpiece," I scolded calmly as I reached forward and shook the can of whipped cream beside me. Damon waited a I made to two small fangs out of the whipped cream in the can at the base of the blueberries he had me assemble into a smiling face. When I leaned back in my chair, I licked the whipped cream off of my finger and shrugged. "Your pancake's got to match your species, right?" I could see Damon crack a smile, and therefore, a small one overcame my lips. "What are you smiling at?"

"What are you smiling at?"

I frowned. "Damon..."

He laughed. "Nothing, nothing. Let's eat."

"Okay..." I trailed off, confused, but shrugged as I started to cut into my pancakes. Though I was a vampire, I still had to eat; and Elena and Damon rushed me out of the dorm room so fast that all I had time to grab was a breakfast bar...which, even as a human, was never fulfilling. As Damon and I began to divulge in the delicious brunch, I spotted the newspaper beside me and my eyes roamed over the open page. It was the crossword, completed but scribbled all over with pen and white-out. As I read the clues and mentally came up with the answers, I mumbled, "'Old tongue twister Eddie turned Top 40'...isn't that—"

"Yellow Ledbetter," Damon and I said at the same time. I looked up at him after grabbing the newspaper in my hand and watched as his eyes rolled hearing the clue. He sighed and continued tauntingly, "6 letter word for an illiterate witch who spent four months on that clue...B."

I scoffed. "Not everyone has a knack for crossword puzzles. When I was four, I used to do them all the time. My dad helped, but he always claimed I did most of the work." I could feel Damon's eyes on me, but I chose not to acknowledge it as I turned the newspaper over and skimmed the back of it in curiosity. Just as I was about to put it down, I spotted an article that stood out from the rest. The smaller article headline read: Family Massacred in Portland. The second I saw the pictures and skimmed over the words, I knew exactly what it was about. My eyes lifted to meet Damon's. "This massacre in Portland, it's about the Parker family, isn't it? Elena mentioned something to me about it after Friendsgiving."

Damon sighed again and resumed eating. "Yep. Kai's greatest hits. Staring us in the face...every day."

"I-I don't get it." I shook my head and set down the paper. "If he gets out, he'll finish what he started. He'll kill Jo and the Parker twins."

"Well, if I have my Gemini rules down, actually, he'll have no reason to go after the Parker twins if he merges with Jo." He paused. "Which will...most likely result in her death, which...I guess is 6 of 1—"

"Why would Dr. Robles give you the Ascendant if she knew it was the one thing keeping her brother from getting out and killing or...merging with her?" I knotted my eyebrows at Damon and awaited an answer. When he gave me none, the confused look on my face dropped and I said flatly, "I mean, if you think about it, it makes no logical sense, does it?"

"Umm..." Damon fumbled for an answer, but as bad of a liar as I was, I was a good enough lie detector. "It makes logical sense if I asked her...err, very nicely? Mads, you want some music? I'm gonna turn on some music."

Damon's obviously guilty conscience forced him up from the table and he walked over to the counter behind the center isle where the CD rack was. Without turning, I demanded, "Damon, stop lying."

"We have Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails...Boys to Men—Stefan's," he clarified as he ignored the request I proposed. Without fail, I lifted myself from the chair and crossed my arms.

"Put the music down, Damon, and tell me what you did," I pressed. With a heavy sigh, Damon turned around and let his shoulders fall, giving up.

"Well, fine. She didn't give it to me. Alaric stole it from her." I squared my jaw and he knew what it meant. Damon watched my face and, realizing how much I didn't believe him, he admitted the truth, adding, "After I...compelled him."

Damon and I stared at each other for a long time. I remained unmoving, and he remained watching me for my reaction. When it finally sunk in and I realized what he had done, with hesitant and unsure movements, I started to turn away from him and walk out of the kitchen, all while hearing him call my name while I walked out.

"Madeline! Madeline, stop!" Damon called after me. I held up my hand and shook my head.

"No, Damon, I...I need some air. I need some time." I shut my eyes and thought as I tried to leave. "Look, I get why you did what you did but I just...I need to be alone right now, I just can't be around you."

"Madeline—" I felt his hand come around my arm and spin me around so that I was stopped and facing him in the middle of the foyer, but as soon as I was still, I ripped my arm from his and unconsciously snapped.

"Stop!" I shouted, taking both of us by surprise. Damon watched me as my breaths grew heavier and I stared at him with erratic eyes. "Stop that! Do you have any idea what this is doing to me? I'm recovering from an intense ritual spell that was used to seal in an alternate ego that's still inside of me and...and all I can think about is you. Don't you understand how hard this is? It's hard enough to be in the same room with you, let alone in a completely desolate prison world! And on top of all that, on top of all this pressure of being alone with you, you tell me that you compelled your best friend, our friend, to steal something from his girlfriend for your own personal gain!"

"I did it to get Bonnie back," Damon rationalized. I shut my eyes and sighed disappointedly.

"Damon, I...I want Bonnie back, too. But not like this. Not at the expense of other people...I'm sorry. I just don't work that way." I started to back out of the house and I watched as Damon's eyes followed me while I shook my head. "Just...don't come after me this time."

With that said, I turned around and walked out of the boarding house, and to my relief, Damon didn't follow.

Despite the fact that time was the one thing we were pressed with, I seemed to have lost track of it. I didn't know how many minutes passed, but I could see the sun slowly descending the sky, not quite enough to transform into nighttime, but it was getting there. We had an hour, at most, before Liv brought all of us back, but Bonnie still wasn't in Mystic Falls. Regardless, after leaving the boarding house, I ended up wandering around town for a few minutes before I finally ended up walking back to my old home, which stood proudly as if had never burnt down in the first place. It hadn't, of course, in 1994, which made sense once I finally thought it through. I decided not to go inside, but to sit on the porch swing that Elena, Jeremy, and I always used to swing on as children in the company of our parents. So much had changed since those days, it seemed almost unreal.

I didn't really expect Damon to not come after me. Of course he would; he was convinced he was in love with me, which automatically meant he wouldn't give up. Sometime later, probably an hour to an hour and a half after I left the Salvatore house, Damon walked up the paved walkway and climbed the porch steps before he came into my view and our eyes locked. I tried to remain in a neutral expression, but I was too exhausted every time I looked at him. Looking at him was exhausting.

I said nothing, so he went first. His tone was solemn, almost apologetic. "May 10th, 1994. I had a day. I was mad at Stefan for something...I don't even remember what it was. And in a typical Damon fashion, I acted out. People died, a lot of them. And believe it or not, ever since that day, I felt horribly guilty. So I thought that this was my hell, Madeline. And you know who didn't? Bonnie. She had hope for both of us. She's the reason I survived, the reason I made it out. Who knew? Turns out, you spend time with someone and don't kill them, you actually become friends."

I stared up at him, trying to feel sympathy, but I just couldn't. I cleared my throat. "Why are you saying this?"

He stepped forward. "If you think that the only reason I'm here is because I'm trying to win you back, I want you to know that I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for Bonnie."

I exhaled. "Damon...of course I don't think that you were doing this for me." My eyes followed him as he came to sit down on the porch swing. "Honestly, I shouldn't have turned this into something about me. We're both doing this for Bonnie, I know that. But there's something about every time that I'm alone with you, I just...you're driving me insane."

The word at the end of my sentence turned into somewhat of a chuckle, and without fail, I could feel Damon smile beside me. Like two magnets, our eyes lifted and locked and I couldn't bring myself to force them away. He grinned. "Is that supposed to be a good insane or a bad insane?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. He nodded, cautiously but still understanding.

"You will," Damon promised with an assuring nod. I wanted to argue, but I also didn't want to continue the conversation any longer. It was awkward enough as it is. So, as Damon's eyes still lingered on my face, I tore my pupils from his and looked at the metal holding up the porch swing. Knotting my eyebrows, I commented on it.

"This swing used to creak..."

"I know. I fixed it." Damon smiled. "Bonnie and I came here every day. It was the closest thing I had to a picture of you. And I needed every reminder I could get." As he finished off the sentence, his eyes tentatively coming over my face to watch my reaction, I couldn't help but start to laugh as I looked around the porch. The laugh wasn't forced, and it was more organic than any laugh I could remember. I really laughed, straight from the depths of my stomach, but it soon turned to something border-lining the hysterical. I knew Damon's eyes were creasing and I held my stomach as I felt the salty tears prick at the side of my eyes while I chuckled, practically doubled over on the porch swing. He followed my movements and, at last, asked, "Madeline, are you...?"

"I-I"m sorry," I told him through my laughs. My head turned to him and I wiped away the hysterical tears in my eyes as I stared at him and took a deep breath to rid the laughter from my abdomen. "Oh, God. It's just...when I look at this house, all I want to remember is the happy memories; the ones that I had with my parents and my siblings and the ones when it was actually standing. But that's the problem. All I can actually remember is what happened when Elena went off the rails and burned it down. All I think about is how this house is gone forever and it was all because...it was all because my sister's vampire emotions clouded her already confused judgement!" I cracked up once more, but if I were being honest, none of it was funny. Damon realized that to, but I'm sure I saw a hint of a smile on his face as he watched me laugh. "A-And now? Now I'm a vampire! Me! And it sounds...awful, but I'm just wondering what it would be like to have an impractical meltdown and burn my childhood memories to the ground..."

After my laughter died, Damon and I sat in silence for a few moments before he finally admitted, "I know how you feel about being a vampire, Madeline. But, from what I can tell, it's much easier for you than the rest of us."

I took in a deep breath. "Being a vampire is difficult. Strange. I vowed that I would never become a vampire, but yet...I still fed. And I don't remember why. All I remember was seeing a pile of blood on the floor in the Salvatore tomb and—"

"And then I showed you that I wanted you to drink the vampire blood." I looked up at him, confused, but he stared at the floor and nodded to himself. "Yep. Of course, I was a ghost. It was very Patrick Swayze-like. Kept waiting for the pottery wheel part," he joked, but I said nothing in return. The look of seriousness on his face after his joke had passed haunted me. Did he really do that? Was he the one who really convinced me to taste the blood off my fingers? Before I could respond, Damon turned his head and cracked a grin. "You want to go inside?"

"The house?" I asked, surprised. He nodded with an obvious look on his face, and after a moment, I pursed my lips and agreed, "Yeah. Yeah, let's go in."

We lifted ourselves off the porch step and moved to go inside, but as we got to the door, I stilled. Damon's breathing sounds were sharp in my ears, and it distracted me from what I wanted to do. At last, I couldn't take it anymore. While still maintaining what I had left of self-control, I turned around and I watched him as his wave-like blue eyes washed over my face and he waited for me to speak. Shakingly, I began.

"You know, I am sorry," I blurted out. He waited for me to clarify. "What I did, compelling away the memories...I've been told it was logical, but it was also very rash and selfish. I had no right to do it, and I wish...I wish I had listened to the people who tried to stop me."

Damon seemed genuinely surprised by my apology, but I wasn't. It had been sitting on my chest since the night of the charity ball. No matter how I felt about him now, being as it was all fake, he didn't deserve to have to create new memories with me. We had a life together. We were going to get married, to spend the rest of our days in bliss. Damon didn't deserve to have all of it ripped away from him just because I cried too much.

At last, he smiled and reached out, touching my face softly with the palm of his hand. "We can always start over, Madeline."

And for a moment, I was lost, and so was he. Both of us were slaves to whatever bond it was that drew us closer, but as I felt myself begin to lose control, I also felt something else; something that made me regain the self-control I knew I had. A blinding light overcame us, and both Damon and I looked up to find that the sky was starting to turn a pale white color and my body felt like it was being pulled to a magnet without actually moving.

"What's happening?" I asked, looking around us with confusion.

"Oh, no!" Damon grunted as the white light enveloped us and, when the paleness faded from our eyes, we were back in the Mystic Falls cemetery, present-day. Damon and I looked up at each other as we realized what was going on.

"No!" I whipped around and observed the Mystic Falls cemetery. "No! We had another hour, what the..." I turned and looked at Liv and Tyler, who were standing inches away from the Mystic Falls border, though I barely noticed it. I shook my head at Liv. "You said we had 8 hours, Liv! That wasn't 8 hours!"

"Kai is here," Tyler defended her, backing them up. "We have to get back to Mystic Falls before he takes any of her magic."

I bent down and picked up the Ascendant that had been dropped on the ground and stood up. "Fine! Fine, you can go back to Mystic Falls, just send us back first. We only need another hour; just one more hour!"

"I can't," Liv told me, but I didn't care how apologetic she was.

"What the hell do you mean you can't?! You just did it! Send one of us back! Bonnie was on her way!"

"I'm sorry, Mads," Tyler told me, but he wasn't apologetic at all. He grabbed Liv's hand and, as they were already on the other side of the border that I didn't dare cross, they fled faster than I could stop them.

"You realize what this means, right?" I mumbled as Damon and were sitting at the Gilbert grave right where Liv and Tyler had left us to our helpless mess. "Bonnie's going to get to the house and she's going to realize that we left her there. That she's all alone. She'll be devastated."

"Until the next comet or full moon or eclipse," Damon corrected me, still finding a sliver of hope. I sighed, defeated. Sure, there was the next comet or full moon, but what mattered was that we told Bonnie we would be there and we weren't going to be. We gave her false hope. Damon gestured at the Ascendant. "As long as we have that, we can go back as many times we need until we get her back."

"Wait, are you guys talking about Bonnie Bennett?" Before I could respond, Damon and I were interrupted by a voice that I had never heard before, but Damon's reaction told me that it was someone who was very famously portrayed in our lives as of the moment. Kai, I presumed, was leaning up against a tree as he watched me and Damon at the grave. "Because, honestly, I didn't think she was all that great."

The moment he finished his sentence, the Ascendant gripped tightly in my hand went flying across the forest and hit a tree, shattering into pieces. With a protesting exclamation, I rushed forward and tried to grab all of the pieces so they didn't get lost. While I fumbled on the ground to hunt through the dirt for all the pieces of the Ascendant, I could hear Kai and Damon's altercation, but I didn't get involved. The Ascendant was the primary focus of my attention, but it was ripped away when the evil psychopath witch came over to me and watched as I stood and faced him with all the pieces in my hand. I held them so tightly I'm sure my fingers were bleeding from the sharp pieces of metal.

"Back the hell off," I snarled. Kai clucked his tongue disappointedly and bent down, where he grabbed a circular piece that I had apparently missed. My breath shook as his evil eyes looked up at mine and he smiled.

"You missed one." Suddenly, his hand waved and my fist unclenched involuntarily, releasing all the pieces of the Ascendant to the ground. As Kai dropped the piece he had collected, he murmured, "Phesmatos incendia," and the Ascendant pieces went up in flame. While Kai moved and I dropped to the ground with another protesting exclamation to try and cease the fire that emerged from the pieces, I could hear him go back to Damon again. Once I had smothered all the flames and stood up to watch Damon as he faced Kai who stood across the border, we both stared at the evil witch as he smirked.

"Huh." He looked around him. "I guess this is that, uh, anti-magic border. Which means now there's a psycho loose in Mystic Falls and no vampires around to stop him." Kai smiled at me and Damon viciously. "Whoops."

And as he walked away, we had no choice but to stay on our side of the border and deal with it, realizing that the situation he posed was much more dangerous than they had anticipated.

All right, so here it is. For those of you who have known about this because you have looked on my profile under the 'Updates' section, you are already aware of what I'm about to say. For those of you who are clueless as to what the hell I'm talking about, please read this note.

I have decided to end this story. Some could look at it as a lack of motivation to update it (I wouldn't blame you if you did because it's partially true) but the fact of the matter is that, regardless of the motivation I have for this story, I just don't feel comfortable with giving Madeline this choice that Elena has about the Cure. I could find a way around this, of course, but with Season 7 being a toss-up on the plot line because of Elena's character departure, I don't want to take the risk in entering something I can't finish. This is why this story will come to an end three chapters after 6x13. The episode-based chapters will end after "The Day I Tried to Live" and three AU chapters will be posted to wrap up the story. I've already planned the ending and I think that it will satisfy almost everyone out there. This was a very difficult decision for me to make because I am honestly so grateful to everyone who has been with this story since day one, but like I've said, I need to retain the integrity of this story and I already feel like, even in these final chapters, it's slipping out of my grasp. That said, it won't mean that this story will be ending soon. These next few episode-based chapters are extremely difficult for me to write as I am having trouble really getting into TVD lately but nevertheless, the story will end soon.

Thank you all for the support and appreciation of this story. I will never forget it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. As always, thanks for reading, and with that said, I also ask that you keep the reviews civil (though I don't really doubt that you won't). I understand some of you will have objections to the story ending but I ask that my decision be respected. I promise that I will not let you readers down with the ending.

-Bella

kamster4000: Thanks! Mads and Damon are the definition of adorable :) Sorry the update was so delayed...honestly, it'll probably happen again but I'm keeping myself oblivious and convincing myself that I'll actually get the next chapter done sometime soon so hopefully the next chapter will come out faster. She will! I can't keep them apart for long!

SomebodyWhoCares: That bear is my life. The Bamon Bear :)

LovelyBlue99: THEY ARE! HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS CHAPTER!

Bella Lugosi: Nope. Still depends on the cuff. If the cuff breaks, Madeline Reichs resurfaces within 24-hours and it's not a question of whether or not she can take over Madeline's body anymore. Once the cuff is broken, it's definite; Madeline Reichs will become the sole controller of Madeline's body and will be free to do whatever with it so here's hoping the cuff doesn't break. More Damon/Madeline scenes soon, I promise! Here's the update, hope you enjoyed it!

Adela: Audrey and Stefan will come together sometime before the story ends, I can promise that. Mads and Damon will get their time, just be patient :) Thanks for reviewing!

grapejuice101: Thanks! Mm...things always get worse before they get better, which is exactly what you need to remember for the AU chapters because things definitely will get worse before they get better in those ones. Anyways, here's the update!

mary: Thank you! I'm not abandoning it, don't worry. It's just time for it to come to an end. I was just having so much trouble with this chapter and it's gonna happen with the next chapter too because these episodes are killing me. But regardless, I updated and I haven't gone anywhere.

beth: If I put this story on hold, I'll never get back to it. And at the rate TVD is going right now I honestly can't see myself getting any more motivation. The ending that I had in mind perfectly wraps up this story and, though it really hurts me to have to end this story, I think it's better this way. I'm not giving up, I promise. I'm trying to make this better for everyone.

nora: Sorry it's taking me so long but here's the chapter.

Guest: Here's the update.

Rebel royal: I'm not giving up on this story, that's not my intention. This is honestly going to be better. It'll be sad, but it'll be better :)

Guest: Here's the update.

mary: I'm really sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy but it has to come to an end. It's a great idea, really, but it's unfair for Madeline to be put through such a trifle. She and Damon deserve their happy ending without complications for a change. Though they will understand that they will have complications, they will get a happy ending. Don't give up hope on that.