Chapter thirty four
It was early evening when Stefan got home and dismissed Katherine in the driveway. He found Alex sitting on the sofa in the parlor staring into her cup of coffee. "Hey. " He said setting the box down on the table. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm alright. Or at least as alright as I can be." She said honestly. "I heard you had an adventure."
Stefan chuckled. "Something like that. Look, I know you're dealing with a lot but I just wanted to give you a heads up." He said. "Katherine is up to something. She was telling me lies about how she found you and Damon and tried to save him or something."
"Depending on what she told you it might be the truth." Alex said.
"You wiped it from his memory?" He asked not sure how angry he should or shouldn't be at the moment.
She nodded. "With good reason. "
"What happened?" He asked.
Her story mirrored Katherine's to an extent. "We weren't friends yet at this time, Stefan. I'm not proud of how I handled things over all … anyway… He was livid. Completely out of control. He'd been with me almost a year at this point and he had never fought me as hard as he did after I found him with her." Her opinion of Katherine was evident in the word Her. " We'd found a cabin up in the foot hills and the only way I could contain him well enough to get Alastair to leave was to force him to stay on the bed and not leave the room even if he managed to break the damned bed. You know him… he would have tried."
Stefan nodded in agreement. His usual amusement lost.
"I went to see him off just before dawn, I'd boarded up the windows in Damon's room because I had taken his ring after recapturing him so that if he got away again he wouldn't get far. Alastair and I wound up talking too long, and it was already light when I got back to the cabin, and I could hear him screaming."
Stefan's brow furrowed.
"She had taken the boards off of the window and left him there to die." Alexandra said. "I got him covered and out of the room. He was a mess, in pain emotionally and physically. I had to force him to feed. He'd given up at that point. Completely despondent. Can't blame him. The woman he loved more than anything tried to kill him, and not in a gentle way."
"So you made him forget. You were already in love with him. "
She nodded. " I had been for months. As far as he knows he had escaped on his own, and when I found him again, I kept him tied up for three days as punishment for escaping. He has no memory of her ever being there. "Alex said. "It really is in her best interest that she stays away from me. "
"I'll make sure she gets that message. So it's not a jealousy problem then."
She laughed. "Now, no. Before yes." She admitted. "I know that he doesn't love her any more. I just also know how much power she has over him. "
"Speaking of my brother, where is he?"
"He went with Avril to pick up a few things. She's going to move into Elena's since Klaus has never been invited in over there."
Stefan nodded. "A good plan over all. Although I think you could lighten up on the anti-witch protection at your place now. "
"I could. But it's still only a one bedroom cabin." She said with a faint laugh that she didn't really feel.
Damon carefully packed away Yvette's tools and supplies. He remembered doing this for Alex when they would pack up to relocate. Back when he had genuinely been her thrall he'd done all manner of grunt work for her. Digging up the graves, filling them in, hauling and packing her things, anything she could come up with for him to do, he did. It was still ingrained how to deal with the tools of the trade including the ones that could cause him harm with a single misstep.
He found a ring box sitting on the counter and looked within, as he did with all the others, making sure of what he was dealing with. Two rings, bone and silver intertwined. One for a man, one for a woman.
"Those are for you and Alexandra."Avril said having packed up the last of her belongings. Neither of them had come with much really. "She mentioned they came in the mail from Mother. They're beautiful."
He nodded. "Yeah. They are." He pocketed the ring box as he finished with Yvette's workspace. "How is your mother holding up?" He asked.
"Not well. But she approves of your handling of the situation." Avril said. "She says death even at the hands of an angry vampire would have been too kind."
"Gentle soul there, your mom." He said laughing softly. "At least I have her approval about something."
"I don't think anyone has ever made that allusion before." She said almost smiling. "Gentle and Julianna Sauveterre are words seldom found in the same sentence. And I wouldn't worry about my mother's opinion. Alex doesn't."
" Easy to say. " Damon said. "She might not let it change her mind, but it affects her. No way it can't." He knew a thing or two about overbearing parents out to control your life. He hated his father with every fiber of his being, but he still hurt under the man's constant disapproval.
"She can handle it." Avril said.
"You ready to go?" He asked and she nodded. "I'll haul this out to the car and we'll head over to Elena's."
Meredith changed out the blood bag, and added the piggyback of a vervain saline mix. Probably wouldn't be kind to the human body but vampires were a different matter entirely. It was effectively putting him into a medically induced coma.
Alex was her best friend but looking over her latest patient she was glad that Yvette was gone. It took a lot of work to scar a vampire's body. Even the ritual performed on Damon had only left the faintest of scars. The same line could be seen on Henry but it was thick and wide.
She wasn't sure how long this was feasible or even fair to the vampire. But she supposed it was easier on them to deal with their own grief before dealing with Henry's. Still didn't feel right in the long run. Damon had tried to explain it to her but she didn't really understand the whole vampire-necromancer pseudo slavery thing. It seemed that everything revolved around power and who had it in that world.
She packed up her bag and went upstairs. She smiled seeing Stefan back. "Well, he's still asleep. How long do you want me to keep that going?" she asked Alexandra.
"I don't know. I need to get into his head to see what she's done to him and I'm not stable enough to do that without hurting him right now." Alex told her honestly. "I'll be fighting him as it is."
"What if one of us helps?" Stefan asked. "I'm not any good at it, because I limit my intake of human blood. But if he's asleep there is no reason that Damon or Caroline couldn't get into his dreams. Maybe keep him calm and cooperative while you work."
"That's a good idea. I'll try and pull myself together and we can try that tomorrow. If we're going to pass Avril off as Yvette this weekend we're going to need him up and functional. "
"This weekend?" Stefan asked.
"The Founders Ball." Damon said as he entered the house. "If we can find a way to contain the son of a bitch, and he makes an appearance, Carol Lockwood is on board. I got a call from Liz this morning." He said going to sit beside Alex on the sofa.
"Well I'm hoping Mom's book of rites will help us out there. " He said digging the translations out of the box and handing them over to Alex. "I wasn't going to bring this up till you'd had a chance to … process." Stefan said gently.
"I'm French" Alex said. "We're just as vindictive as you Italians. This is processing." She began to flip through the pages, and whistled lowly "this is old school. This is the sort of work my father would have done."
Stefan looked at Damon a moment before continuing. "Professor Hanlon believed that the writer was from the renaissance. He said the language used was ancient Sardinian, but the syntax and whatever else was from the Renaissance."
"Guess Mother really has a handle on that whole aging thing." Damon said, not seeing the look Stefan had given him. "Where's the original?"
"I've got it here. I think the pages are treated with poison though so I don't think Alex should handle it."
"She's not going to. I'm going to put it somewhere no one else can get to it." He told his brother.
Stefan nodded and handed the book over to his brother.
"This might work." Alex said looking over the ritual. "It will contain him. But we won't be able to get in there until he desiccates or we hit him with enough vervain to take him down. I won't risk any of you being bitten."
"No argument from me there. The only problem is if we do this at the ball, we're going to have to keep Mrs. Lockwood from letting him out. It's her son's body." Stefan said.
"Then we are just going to have to make her understand that it's the only way to get him out of there and that Tyler isn't feeling any of it." Alex said. "Or we keep her off the vervain and compel her to leave it be. "
"Between now and then we'll work out all the contingencies. " Stefan said and Damon nodded.
"Right now I want to take Alex home so she can rest. We have a lot to do in the next six days. "
"Be careful" Stefan said.
"Who me? I'm always careful." Damon said.
"Says the guy with his own ransom note." Stefan teased.
"Once." Damon said. "It happened once."
"Twice actually." Stefan pointed out.
"Good thing I've sworn off tall blondes." Damon countered and held his hand out to Alexandra. He could have said something hurtful to Stefan in that moment, but it just wasn't worth it. He'd take it too seriously. Or maybe Damon would mean it too seriously. Either way it didn't need to be said.
"I'll go through the rest of the stuff I found and let you know if it looks useful." Stefan said as the couple walked toward the door.
"I appreciate it, thank you." Alex told them and let Damon lead her out into the heavy rain and to the SUV. "If this keeps up they'll wind up canceling the ball."
"You'd be surprised how serious people take their founders events around here. It will come off. Especially with Carol pushing for it. She wants her son back. "
"I don't think the others are ready for what's coming." She said as he started the vehicle.
"Are you?" He asked.
"I will be." Alex leaned back against the seat. "I'll be depending on you heavily, though. "
"Good." He said. "I hate watching from the sidelines."
Carol reached out and touched the garnet stone that hung from Caroline's neck. She could feel the warmth emanating from it and smiled. "He's really in there." She said bringing her hand to her face.
"We're doing everything we can to put him back where he belongs. I swear." Caroline said taking the older woman's free hand.
"I believe you." She said. "You'll make sure the bastard pays for what he's done to my boy?" Carol asked.
"Yes." Caroline said firmly. "We will." The only thing they couldn't do was destroy the soul because that would destroy them all. But they could trap him and make him miserable.
"I'm glad I was wrong about you." Carol said. "Tyler is lucky to have you in his life."
Caroline smiled. "That means a lot to me. Thank you. I need to go though. Once I know what the plan is I will come back and explain it to you. This has to stay between us. You can't tell anyone else about it."
"Of course not. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize getting Tyler back. " Carol said, and then walked Caroline and her mother to the door. "Let me know as soon as possible. "
Kol watched the car leave the drive and frowned at Elijah. "Do you still want to sit back and wait?"
"Yes." He said "When they complete their ritual, we retrieve the stone, and have a witch place him in a much more controllable body. It actually works to our favor to have them be successful in their plans."
Kol thought about it then nodded.
Elijah smiled warmly as Carol returned "See, did I not tell you everything would work out in the end."
Carol nodded. "Yes. I never should have doubted you."
Damon parked the car as close to the door as possible and went around to help her out and hurried for the porch.
"I won't melt I promise." Alex said with a faint smile. She was trying. She knew she couldn't frown and cry all the time. She knew that she had to find moments of happiness again. Even so soon after her sister's death. But it was hard.
Damon smiled a little "there are better ways to be wet all over." He pointed out as he unlocked the door. "Why don't you go get dried off. I'll get a fire started." He said stripping off his wet shirt.
He watched after her worriedly as she left the room. It was easy to forget just how human she really was sometimes. "Have you eaten yet?" He called out as the fire took and the kindling began to crackle.
"I'm not hungry. You go ahead though." She answered from the bedroom.
He frowned but went to the kitchen to get a mug of dinner and a bottle of wine and two glasses. He set these on the hearth as well as the ring box before going into the bed room to change into dry pants. "I've got wine by the fire."
"Sounds good." She said. "I'm going to turn into a lush at this rate." She tried to tease.
"Nah, I do most of the drinking. You're fine." He offered his hand and she took it. With his free hand he snatched the down comforter up and brought it with them, spreading it out in front of the fire place.
Alexandra settled down comfortably, and reached over to grab a throw pillow from the sofa. "Remember that cabin in Colorado?" She asked. "The one with that terrible seventies shag carpet."
"Do you remember not thinking that it was terrible at the time?" Damon asked in return.
"Well, not until I had the imprint of all those threads in my back side." She laughed a little. "I don't think we used the bed the entire time we were there. "
"No reason, the carpet was soft under the blanket, and the fire place was huge. I swear we could have made love in there and never touched any of the sides. Except of course for that whole fire thing."
"We've wasted a lot of time, haven't we?" She asked softly.
"We have all the time in the world." Damon told her.
"Do we?" She asked. "We've both come close to dying since I've come here. How close have we come in the past?"
"We're still here." He said. "And we'll be here tomorrow. And a year from tomorrow."
"You can't promise that, Damon."
"Sure I can. " He said. "And I'll make it happen. I'm sorry she's gone. I am. But I'm not going to let that happen to you."
"It's not me I'm worried about."
"That's a given. Worrying about you is my job. I'm good at it. You really shouldn't take it away from me. I'll get bored. Worse I'll pout. It's not attractive."
She almost laughed. She did smile a little. "Can't have that. A bored Damon is a dangerous thing indeed."
"Finally, someone who understands that." He reached over to pick up the ring box. "I found these at your sisters. Avril confirmed that they are ours. " he opened it up.
"They're beautiful. " She said as he took the smaller of the two out of the box.
He said nothing, didn't look away from her eyes as he picked up her left hand and slid the ring on the second finger.
She drew in a sudden breath and simply nodded yes to the question she found in his eyes. She took the remaining ring in trembling fingers and somehow found his hand. She didn't have to ask if he was sure. She wouldn't have asked even if there was doubt.
Damon leaned forward kissing her tenderly, easing her back onto the blanket, dinner and wine completely forgotten.