A/N: Thank you so much for all the amazing reviews! :):):)

Apparently, S4 is going to have 23 episodes! Yay! That's got to be the first non-frustrating TVD spoiler I've ever encountered lol (This story, however, is still going to have only 22 chapters, just so you know ;)

Beta: arabian – Thank you so much! *hugs*

Disclaimer: TVD belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.

Chapter 16

"I hate this thing," Jeremy muttered into his cell phone at the sound of the voice mail ring. "Hey Matt, did you get a chance to talk to Bonnie? Call me when you get this. Or any of those previous messages I left," he added after he had hung up.

The doorbell reached his ears when he was walking down the stairs, and he stopped for a moment, wondering who could it be. The bell rang once again, and then a few times more before Jeremy was close enough to open the door. When he did, he dropped his phone at the sight, his eyes widening almost to the point of no return.

"What's happened?" he whispered, staring in shock at Damon who carried an unconscious Elena inside. His eyes shifted between them, taking in their horrifying appearance. Both were drenched by the rain, covered in blood, smudged with mud.

"Not the best time for a Q&A session," Damon retorted grimly. "Do you have a bathtub down here?" he asked, hoping to avoid splashing blood and mud all over Elena's room and her bathroom.

Jeremy swallowed. "Yes," he gasped, quickly locking the front door, and leading the way. "Here."

"I need sponges, towels," Damon muttered, gently placing Elena in the tub. "A pillow." Hearing no movement behind him, he glanced at Jeremy over his shoulder. "And for you to stop looking like I just told you Santa didn't exist."

Jeremy shook himself out of shock, grabbed a sponge, and a stash of towels from the cabinet, and went to get a pillow from the guest room. He hadn't really been prepared for that kind of return, especially after the phone call that had reassured him that Elena was feeling well. Now his mind was producing all kinds of gruesome scenarios as he tried to figure out what had happened.

He ran back to the bathroom as fast as he could, handing Damon the pillow. Damon slid the pillow under Elena's head, having rinsed her hair while Jeremy was gone.

"Is she going to be OK?" Jeremy asked, wincing in dismay at the dried blood around Elena's mouth, cold shivers running up his spine at the only plausible reason for this that sprung to his mind.

"Of course she's going to be OK," Damon said in an impatient voice, seemingly taking offense. He unclasped a bracelet from around Elena's wrist and tugged both daylight rings off her fingers, putting them away on the basin shelf behind him. "She's just… I had to break her neck," he said tonelessly.

"What?" Jeremy gasped, stunned. For a few seconds only the rush of water disturbed the silence. No explanation followed. And somehow he knew that even if he asked more questions he wouldn't get any answers right now. "Is there anything I can do?" he finally asked in a low, strained voice, glaring at the back of Damon's head.

But then Damon looked at him over his shoulder, and the grim seriousness in his eyes made Jeremy's anger fade into sadness. "No. Wait outside. Don't tell anyone she's here," he added when Jeremy turned to leave.

Jeremy nodded imperceptibly, his eyes flickering to Elena's lifeless form. She would've looked like that had they let her not to complete the transition, he thought abstractly closing the bathroom door and leaving Damon alone with Elena. She would've been lying like that in a coffin, limp and pale, with her eyes closed. He felt a wave of cold wash over him at the image, and for a moment he could only feel towering relief that she would wake up, no matter what had happened, no matter what she had done.

It made him feel a little ashamed, that momentary disregard for anything and anyone else, but it also, somehow, made him understand Elena's motivation for having him compelled in the past. He had been so angry with her. But now he could see that she had just done what she had believed was best for him, because that was a human decision to make. That relentless, self-righteous kind of love was what made people human.

It was a strange revelation, and he wasn't even sure if it was true. But in some weird way it all made sense. That's why his sister, vampire or not, would always remain human. That's why she was drawn to Damon of all people, because he was like that too. If anyone was in need of becoming human again to survive it wasn't them, because what made them human was strong enough to burn bright in them even when they weren't human anymore.

The sound of the bell made Jeremy look toward the door with a frown. Maybe it was just Matt, Jeremy thought, picking his phone from the floor on his way to check who it really was. When he opened the door, he was greeted by two grim, concerned faces.

"Thank God you're home," Caroline said, as soon as Jeremy opened the door.

"What's happened?" Jeremy asked, looking between Caroline and Stefan. He hoped that maybe he could manage to get the answer to his question out of them.

"We came back..." Caroline started, not really knowing what to say. "We're looking for Elena. She's... out of control," Caroline said with a grimace, unable to choose better words while stressing over the entire situation so much. "You should stay home in case she comes here," she hesitated for a second before adding. "But she may be dangerous so don't let her anywhere near you, just let us know she's here."

"Wait, wait," Jeremy shook his head, waving his hands to silence her. "Why is Elena out of control? She was fine when I talked to her."

"Seriously, Jeremy?" Caroline lost her reasonable tone. "She's a vampire. She may sound fine one moment and lash out in the other."

"What do you mean by lash out?" Jeremy pressed, squinting.

Caroline huffed and glanced at Stefan.

"Elena... killed someone," Stefan said barely above a whisper, his eyes dim with sadness.

"Who? When? Where?" Jeremy asked, his throat dry even if he had expected to hear that ever since he had seen the state Elena was in. He could only imagine- No, he couldn't imagine how she must've felt, how she was going to feel when she woke up. That's what he had feared most of all, Elena killing someone, because that was the one thing that could destroy her, that could break her. "Here?" He continued with the questions, making a mental note to think about what Bonnie had said, about Klaus believing he could break everyone.

"No," Caroline said, biting her lip.

"While she was away?" Jeremy demanded, annoyed that he had to drag each answer out of them, as if they couldn't just tell him the whole story.

"On our way back," Stefan said.

Jeremy shook his head in a mirthless grimace. "I knew it wasn't a good idea, bringing her back before she decided to come back."

Caroline widened her eyes at him. "That's your conclusion? Do you think it happened because we'd gone to bring her home?"

"So why did it happen?" Jeremy retorted with a hint of irritation in his voice. "And what's going on now? Why is she running out of control around Mystic Falls?"

"We don't know, Jeremy," Stefan said levelly. "Maybe the killing triggered something."

"She didn't really hurt anyone here yet," Caroline cut in, and Jeremy's eyes shifted to her. "She just scared some campers, bit one of them. Nothing fatal," she added quickly, "but they alarmed the whole town. My mom and Tyler's mom barely managed to get the atmosphere under control after what Alaric had told the Council. And now this." Caroline shook her head with a helpless grimace. "Maybe this could pass as a group hallucination, a prank, I don't know, but only if we find Elena before she attacks someone else. Alright," Caroline interrupted herself, looking Jeremy straight in the eye. "Just stay here and call us if something happens," she said in a determined voice in case Jeremy would argue against it. "OK?"

Having turned off the water, Damon tore away the remaining strap of the nightgown from Elena's shoulder, and tugged the entire garment off her. He was so wrapped up in thinking about what he should do to help her, that it was only when the sight of her actually registered in his mind that he realized he was seeing her naked for the first time, and she wasn't aware of that. Not to mention how sad the circumstances were.

Sponging the blood and the dirt away, he held on to the sound of her heartbeat. She would wake up in a few hours. Only waking up wouldn't solve anything. He had to find a way to make her wake up free of that dark madness that had fallen over her, and he didn't have a clue what to do.

He put the sponge away, and took the diamond ring from the shelf. He scrubbed the blood off the ring, and slid it on Elena's finger. Holding her hand in his, he rested his forehead against the rim of the tub and closed his eyes.

"Is everything alright in there?" Jeremy's voice resounded from the other side of the door, and Damon lifted his head.

"Yes," he answered tiredly. "Who was it?" he asked, deciding that if it would take Jeremy more than one second to form an answer-

"Stefan and Caroline," Jeremy said, but there was a hint of a question in his reply. "They were looking for Elena," he amended when no reply came. "I told them to let me know when they find her," he added after another pause.

Damon turned on the water to rinse the soap off Elena's shoulders. "And just when exactly did I get elevated to the top of your trust list?" he asked, putting away the shower head, grabbing the biggest towel and wrapping it around Elena. He then draped another towel over his bloodied shirt to avoid transferring the blood and the dirt from it onto her when he picked her up to carry her in his arms.

"Not mine," Jeremy answered after a few seconds. "Elena's."

Damon knocked on the bathroom door with his foot, and Jeremy yanked the door open, letting him through. Kicking off his muddy shoes, Damon headed up the stairs to Elena's room where he laid her down on her bed.

"Are you on speaking terms with your living ex too?" Damon asked, adjusting the pillows under Elena's head.

Jeremy narrowed his eyes at Damon's back. "Bonnie isn't talking to anyone lately. Matt went to see her a few hours ago, but now he isn't picking up his phone either."

"What's up with her?" Damon straightened up and went to Elena's closet.

Jeremy slightly raised his eyebrows, watching him rummage unceremoniously through Elena's clothes. "She's working on a spell… I think. I don't know exactly. She isn't telling anyone what she's doing."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring," Damon said, picking the clothes and throwing them on a chair near the bed.

"Klaus wanted us to find a spell to turn Elena human again and Bonnie found that spell. I think she's trying to tweak it, so it, I don't know, kills Klaus or something," Jeremy thought out loud.

"Shocking," Damon said, pulling a large drawer open. "No wonder she isn't telling anyone about it."

"She doesn't want Klaus to know," Jeremy said dryly, squinting.

"Yes, I'm sure he believes that somewhere between killing your aunt, getting Stefan reacquainted with his crimson past, and nearly bleeding Elena to death, we started caring about his well-being. It's not like we tried to kill him ten times before," Damon added with a humorless grimace, picking the lingerie pieces and closing the drawer.

Jeremy sighed, trying not to become irritated by the arrogant treatment of Elena's clothes. "So why do you think she's being so secretive about it?" It struck him that something had changed though. It wasn't so much arrogance as it was self-confidence and he blinked. "Are you and Elena together?" he asked on an impulse in a voice more stern than he had intended when Damon was showing him out of the room in order to get Elena dressed.

Damon looked at him and for a moment Jeremy didn't know what to make of the unprecedented expression on his face. He looked a little surprised, a little confused, a little breathless. Jeremy began to think the answer was 'no,' but then what seemed shaded as uncertainty flickered into a shadow of a strangely timid smile. Something bright glimmered in his eyes when he said in a gentle and solemn voice.

"We're engaged."

It wasn't a good idea to split up, Caroline thought dully, walking across the cemetery. It was an even worse idea to come here of all places, although it was as likely a place for Elena to be as any other. Well, maybe not as likely, but she had used to spend so much time here that it made sense that she would come here now, especially if she retained enough common sense, or enough Elena sense, to try staying away from the living.

"What are you doing here?"

Caroline whirled around, coming face to face with Bonnie, which caused the fear to throttle into irritation. "You scared me!"

"What are you doing here, Caroline?"

"I'm looking for Elena," Caroline answered, the seriousness on Bonnie's face not calming her nerves in the slightest. "What are you doing here?" she asked incredulously, glancing around.

"Why are you looking for Elena?" Bonnie asked with a frown.

"I'm not answering any of your questions until you answer some of mine," Caroline said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"That's probably not going to prove being the most effective technique, is it?"

Caroline froze, her eyes fixed on Bonnie who hadn't spoken the words. "What's going on here?" Caroline asked with as much annoyance as she could muster, trying to convince herself that being afraid of someone who was sending her drawings of ponies was ridiculous. "Bonnie?" she asked, thrusting up her chin, ignoring the sense of his presence behind her, refusing to give him the satisfaction of making her turn around.

Bonnie just held Caroline's gaze, her expression unreadable. There was a brief sound, shuffling of feet, and then very slowly, Klaus stepped from where he was standing behind Caroline. He walked very near her, keeping his eyes on her. She gave him an ostensibly bored look.

"I hope this means you'll leave Tyler alone now," Caroline snapped, looking him up and down condescendingly, and then shot Bonnie a glare.

Klaus smirked. "You have two more wishes left, love."

Caroline shifted her eyes between Bonnie and Klaus, glaring at them both. "So what, you're now a team or something?" she asked sardonically, trying to understand what was going on. Her intuition screamed at her that it was all a ruse, that Bonnie couldn't possibly really be on Klaus' side. But then again her intuition didn't even work with multiple-choice history questions.

Klaus seemed perfectly amused by the entire situation. "Why so grumpy?" he asked with fake concern, and then grinned. "You're welcome to join our team," he said reassuringly in a business-like tone, extending his arms.

Caroline huffed in irritation. "Is that really worth it? All the fuss to turn Elena into a human, so you could continue creating your stupid hybrids for the next sixty years?"

Klaus tilted his head to the side. "Why sixty?"

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Seventy. Eighty. Whatever."

Klaus looked at her with a smirk she definitely didn't like even if she didn't have the faintest idea what it meant.

"Oh the suspense," Klaus chuckled, glancing at Bonnie who wasn't smiling but didn't look outraged either. "Well, I won't keep you in the dark for long. And actually, since you're here, why don't you forward my invitation to Elena," he said, extending his hand with a red envelope to Caroline, who looked down at it, and then back at his face, making no movement to take it from his hand. "I didn't prepare invitations for anyone else, but they'll probably all come running anyway, so…" he said, laughing under his breath. "Saving forests and all that."

"What is it?" Caroline asked in a steely voice.

"Well, it's an invitation," Klaus said with a small pout, flipping the envelope a few times in his hands. "To a farewell party," he said with a smirk that sent icy cold shivers up Caroline's spine. "This Sunday. It's going to be an unforgettable night."

Completely dumbstruck by Damon's words, Jeremy went downstairs to get the guest bathroom back in order. He threw away the bloodied, dirty gown, cleaned the tub, and then grabbed a bracelet and a ring that were left on the shelf. He wrinkled his forehead, looking thoughtfully at the ring, remembering that Elena was wearing a different ring when Damon had carried her upstairs. He blinked, beginning to believe Damon wasn't joking. But the idea of Elena marrying him was right up there with… he tried to think of something that still belonged in the realm of the impossible, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster. Yes, somewhere between these, most definitely.

Before going upstairs, he went to the freezer and grabbed a couple of blood bags that he had gotten for Elena. For a moment he stared into the freezer, contemplating the weirdness of blood bags lying side by side with ice cream and frozen dinners. He wondered what their parents would say. Drawing a hasty breath he shut the freezer and headed back upstairs.

When he walked into the room Elena was already dressed. Damon pressed a kiss to her lips and stood up, and only then did Jeremy notice that Elena's hands were tied to the box spring.

"Stay here. She shouldn't wake up for a few more hours, but if she does call me immediately, and… try not to get in the way," Damon said, hoping it wasn't too foolish to hope that Elena's state didn't change the usual length of staying unconscious after having one's neck snapped. "I'm going to get Bonnie."

Jeremy dropped Elena's bracelet and the ring from Bonnie on the nightstand near the bed. "Wait," he said turning to look at Damon. "Do you think she's under a spell? That she didn't just... lash out?" he asked with a frown.

"The faster I leave, the faster I come back," Damon said, walking past him.

"Do you think these will hold her?" Jeremy asked dubiously, glancing at the ropes made out of linen sheets.

"Long enough for you to get out of the room and block the door with a wardrobe," Damon replied with a sour smile and went to the room adjacent to Elena's room. Pushing the wardrobe out into the hallway, he placed it next to Elena's door.

"Wouldn't vervain-" Jeremy started but stopped at the look Damon gave him.

"I'll be back in fifteen minutes. There is no way she wakes up earlier than that," Damon said decidedly, heading down the stairs, but stopping in his tracks when Jeremy called his name. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch a blood bag that Jeremy had thrown to him.

"You look like you need one," Jeremy said, glancing at the wound on Damon's shoulder and going back to Elena's room.

Damon raised his hand to knock on Bonnie's house door, but before he did, the door opened and his eyes met Abby's grim gaze.

Blinking instead of rolling his eyes, he asked about Bonnie, but when Abby shook her head almost before he finished the question, he briefly explained the situation.

"I wouldn't ask Bonnie for help with that anyway," Abby said in a low voice.

Damon frowned. "And why is that?"

Abby looked away, a flicker of a humorless smile flickering across her face. "Let's say she has enough on her mind right now." She regarded Damon in silence for a second. "I could go and see if I can help. A witch without powers is better than no witch," she added when Damon looked skeptical.

"Where's the catch?" he asked with a small smirk that didn't reach his eyes.

"An answer to one question," Abby said, squinting. Damon gave her a questioning look. "Why did you do it?"

This time Damon did roll his eyes. "I'm afraid I don't have time for that tonight."

"I'm not asking why it happened. I'm asking why did you do it?" Abby repeated her question, the new emphasis drawing Damon's attention back to the question.

Abby leaned against the door frame, casting her eyes to the sky. "Witches aren't immune to death, but when it comes, the details concerning our death are revealed to us." Slowly, she shifted her eyes back to Damon.

"Fascinating. Only that I still fail to see the point to this question."

"Is it so hard to answer?" Abby asked with more interest than Damon thought reasonable.

He could almost hear the clock ticking in his head, wasted seconds passing by. "Let's say it didn't drastically change my bad deeds record," he said at last. "Can we go now?"

But Abby didn't move from where she was standing. "It might've changed it for the better if you didn't do it."

"Maybe," Damon said, wrinkling his forehead. Beginning to lose patience. He tried to think of somebody else whose help he could enlist. But that would require more time and he inwardly cringed at the idea of locking Elena up in the boarding house's cellar until he figured out what to do. He looked at Abby, but she was still stubbornly waiting for some kind of definite answer. "Maybe my brother needed not to do that more. Is that helpful?" he asked sardonically.

Abby gave him a faint smile. "Perhaps." She took a step forward and shut the door behind her. "Let's go."

"And?" Jeremy asked impatiently, looking between Elena's sleeping face and Abby who was squatting near the bed, looking at her very intently.

"Could you leave me alone with her for a minute?" Abby asked, catching the sight of the ring on the nightstand, her gaze flickering between this ring and the one on Elena's finger.

"Nope," Damon said, tilting his head to the side, watching the entire scene from where he was standing with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

Jeremy glanced at him before looking back at Abby, interested in her reaction to that, but the expression on her face didn't change in any significant way.

Standing up, she propped herself on the nightstand, her hand briefly covering the ring, and when she withdrew her hand the ring was gone.

"She's going to be OK," she said with unsmiling confidence.

Jeremy blinked in confusion. "How do you know?"

"I can't be more detailed if you're standing here, blocking the energy flow. It's hard for me to read it anyway. I'm no longer a witch," she said, not really explaining anything at all.

"I'll show myself out," Abby said, leaving the room and walking down the stairs.

Damon waited a few seconds, his eyes fixed on the nightstand. When he heard the front door open, he followed Abby in a blur.

"Why did you take the ring?"

The question stopped Abby when she was already out in the dark street. Gusts of cool, rain-soaked wind brushed against her. She turned around. Damon looked at her, his eyes glimmering in the darkness.

"Do you know how excruciating that pain was when I realized my powers were gone?" Abby said after watching him for a few moments, her voice quiet, devoid of any negative intensity. "It was like having my heart torn out," she spoke in a thoughtful voice, without a trace of anger in it. "One night," she started after a pause, drawing a slow, shaky breath, "I couldn't sleep. I was walking around the house, thinking about that. Bonnie was staying with me. She was asleep. I stopped at the foot of her bed and looked at her and… I was floored by how stupid I was." Her eyes drifted back to Damon who clearly didn't expect that kind of conclusion. "I should've felt like that when I had left her. That was when I should've felt like my heart had been torn out."

"I don't suppose this is a foreword to a thank you note?" Damon asked in a low voice, eyebrows furrowed.

A small, bitter smile flickered across Abby's lips. "What I'm trying to say is that different people need different things. Maybe I, for one, needed to stop being a witch to understand what I didn't understand before."

Damon studied her face for a second and then blinked, struck by a thought. He took a step toward her. "Was that done on purpose? Bonnie made a ring for Elena that made her do what she did? Was making her kill someone meant to make it easier for her to agree to killing someone later on so she could become human again?" he asked incredulously, glaring at her.

"I'm sure Bonnie didn't do it on purpose," Abby answered calmly, thrusting up her chin and withholding Damon's gaze. "But it sounds like this reasoning could be applied to Klaus."

"Klaus?" Damon frowned. Klaus' attack in Pennsylvania had happened before Elena got the ring from Bonnie and Abby was more or less confirming that the ring was to be blamed. Chronologically the story made no sense. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Abby raised her hand in a silencing gesture.

"I've already told you more than I should. Let it go. The ring is gone now. She should be OK."

"Should be OK?"

Abby drew a breath. "There are different kinds of spells. Some of them are fully tied to an object," she said glancing at the ring in the palm of her hand. "Some of them are tied only remotely, and they may leave a trace of the spell behind. But she was wearing it only for a short time, so even if something will linger it shouldn't affect her much. She may just feel a little confused or tired," Abby added reassuringly with utmost seriousness. "This is a risky route that Bonnie's taken. But she'd never intentionally hurt a friend."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Damon said through his teeth.

"All roads lead through hell," Abby said in a low voice. "It's just important to eventually get out of it."

Still glaring at her, but feeling like he wouldn't get any real answers, Damon turned around to walk back to the house.

"It could've been much worse," Abby said, stopping him in his tracks. "These kinds of spells don't leave room for reflection or even a glimpse of consciousness. If it had worked the way it was intended you wouldn't have been able to stop her."

"So we should thank Bonnie for not making the effects more severe?" Damon asked mockingly, turning around.

Abby glanced at the sky. "I told you it isn't Bonnie's fault. And no," she looked back at him. "What I meant was that the other ring blocked the original spell a little." Damon's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "The oldest and simplest magic of all," Abby said quietly, a shadow of a smile flitting across her face, "comes from anything that's given with love and received with love."

From Elena's window, Jeremy watched Abby and Damon talking, regretting that he couldn't hear a word. He contemplated going downstairs, but leaving Elena alone was not an option-

"Jeremy?"

Jeremy jumped away from the window, his eyes darting to Elena who slowly pulled herself to a sitting position, leaning back on her bent elbows.

"Elena," he whispered, his eyes studying her carefully.

"What's time is it?" she asked, rubbing her eyes, and glancing around the room.

There was nothing alarming in Elena's face or behavior and Jeremy relaxed a little. "I don't know," he said, suddenly remembering that he had completely lost track of time. "Late. How do you feel?" he asked, walking around the bed and squatting next to it, looking up at her with concern.

Elena hid her face in her hands for a second and Jeremy held his breath, but then she dropped her hands to her lap and looked at him with a weak smile. "I'm OK. I just feel a little sleepy, I guess." Her expression became thoughtful and she wrinkled her forehead, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts. It wasn't that she didn't remember what had happened… Or rather one moment she remembered and then she didn't. Then she remembered everything at once and nothing at all. Her head hurt. "Where is my phone?"

"I don't know," Jeremy said uncertainly, pulling his own phone out of his pocket. "You can use mine," he offered, and Elena clumsily took the phone from his hand. "Who do you want to call?" Jeremy asked with a hint of bafflement in his voice, glancing between her face and the phone.

She seemed to ponder the question for a split second, but perhaps it was just a surge of headache that made her grimace a little. She drew a breath, her eyes darting right and left before she focused on the phone again, hitting the numbers with her fingertips as she answered his question in a steady tone. "Stefan."