Chapter thirty seven

Damon settled into position on the bed, his head resting on Alexandra's lap. "No headboard this time?" He teased, not noticing how his brother tensed at that one.

"No. I figure Stefan and Elena can hold you down if you try to bolt." She said laughing a little.

"Really?" Damon said "I don't know if I was just insulted or not." He drew in a deep breath and let it out with a hum as the potion began to take effect. "It's a shame I won't be awake to enjoy this." He said loving the increase in the connection between them. It was just as well it wasn't like that all the time though. It would be overwhelming if on for too long. "We need to figure out a way to do this recreationally." He said as his eyes began to drift close. "Feels good."

"Hedonist." Alex stroked his hair, gently massaged his temples, relaxing him further. "okay, he's asleep. " she said closing her eyes, going once more inside Damon's mind.

Stefan walked Elena through it again. He'd gotten better with this sort of thing during his time with Klaus. There was a great deal about his time with the original that he chose not to tell Damon or Elena about. He remembered when his mother died and chose a time close to that.

"Give that back you runt!" A sixteen year old Damon chased his younger brother up the stairs. "That's mine."

"Not anymore." The twelve year old Stefan called back. "Dad said I could have it."

"It's not his to give away."

"Well I see that some things about having younger siblings never changes." Elena said smiling, she let Stefan lead her after them, but her eyes were on the mansion itself. "So beautiful." She murmured.

They followed the boys up two flights of stairs and down the corridor where Damon finally cornered Stefan. "Give it back; Mother gave it to me, not you."

"And I gave it to him." Their father said in a stern tone, just shy of a bark.

Damon turned to face him, shoulders squared and defiant. "You can't do that. It's not yours. It's mine."

"You own nothing in this house boy." Giuseppe scolded. "You possess what I allow you to possess and nothing more. The book is Stefan's. Now get out of my sight."

Damon still stood glaring.

"Come on," his little brother said, pulling at Damon's arm. "Please."

Damon attempted to scowl at Stefan but failed. "Yeah, alright." He grumbled and let the boy lead him away. He wanted to sulk, he wanted his damned book back. Not that he was going to pursue it at the moment. He knew his father would be hovering around.

"You're father was a jerk." Elena said softly, they had yet to let themselves be seen by the boys.

Stefan simply nodded.

Damon let the younger Stefan lead him around the corner and into one of the unoccupied rooms.

"I'm sorry." The boy said. "I didn't mean to get you into trouble."

Damon clearly wanted to yell at the kid but didn't. Instead he went to look out the window, watching as a buck board pulled up to the house and a woman was helped to the ground. "It's not your fault." He said instead, "It's still my book though." He grumbled continuing to watch.

Stefan held the book out to his brother, and was surprised at the scowl he got in return.

"He'll search my room tonight. You know he will. Finish reading it. You can give it back to me later." He said sullenly, and reached out to mess up his brother's hair. "Go on. Get outta here."

"Did you give him the book back?" She asked quietly.

Stefan shook his head as they followed Damon out of the room. "This is the day our mother dies. Neither of us spoke of it again."

"What is it we're supposed to be doing here?"

"For now we watch." Stefan said. "We're surfing his memories."

Damon stood quietly at the railing looking down two floors below to the woman as she was invited inside. She handed over a piece of paper, and the maid escorted her into his mother's rooms on the second floor. Damon went down the stairs and to the door, listening closely.

He frowned hearing nothing, and rapped on the door. The woman opened it, standing aside to let him enter. He went to his mother's side, leaned over and kissed her cheek. "You're looking better today." He said before going to take his accustomed seat in her room.

"I'm glad you came." She said. "I was just about to send for you. There is something I need you to do, Damon. It's very important. "

He nodded his agreement.

"Portia is going to talk to you for a moment, and you need to do exactly as she says. " Madelena said taking her son's hand.

"I'm not Stefan, Mother, you can speak plainly." Damon said.

"Very well," Madelena said "I am dying." She held up her hand when he began to protest. "Do not interrupt me. You believe you are adult enough to hear it, then you must be adult enough to listen. "

He nodded gravely.

"There are things that you do not know and cannot know until the time is right. Just understand that I can come back. If things are done now."

He started to ask how, but closed his mouth and nodded instead.

His mother nodded in turn and offered him something to drink in a small cup.

He started to ask what it was but the look on her face bade him to be silent so he took the drink and consumed it, making a face. "Dear god." He said.

Madelena laughed quietly. They chatted over nothing until she could see that he was beginning to drift off. "You may speak to him, Portia. You know what I want done."

The woman knelt before Damon and focused on his face. "You will find after your mother's death, amongs her things, a stone as red as blood, a leather bound book in a language you do not understand," The list continued. "These you will secret away in the sepulcher. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Damon answered in the bland tone of one who was being compelled.

"Very good." She said. "When all is in place you will return the next new moon and wait there. You will comply with all that is asked of you at that time. You will do so without fear, and without hesitation. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He said again.

"Give me your hand."

He held forth his hand and Portia sliced it open. She milked his blood into two vials and put them into a basket with several others. She then bit her wrist and made him drink to heal the wound instantly.

"Go to your room and go to sleep, you have a headache if anyone asks. You will not remember this conversation. You will not remember any of the actions you have taken now, nor any that you have been asked to perform. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Damon said.

"You may go." Portia said as she took a black disk from the basket.

Elena looked at Stefan in shock. "Your mother is using him to bring her back from the dead? How is that even possible?" She asked shaking her head.

"I don't know." He said and led them back out of his brother's mind. He had thought to delve deeper but such things could wait until there weren't so many witnesses. He opened his eyes and looked as Alex continued to work. He could only hope that what she was doing was going to be enough. He'd never heard of a compulsion that lasted beyond transition. They all fell away once you died.

"Just sleep." Alex was saying to Damon, and Stefan watched his brother's body relaxed in her arms as he slid deeper into sleep. "He's not going to deal with this well at all." She said quietly.

"We don't know that he was going to be harmed." Stefan said.

"Not often that you have to compel someone to cooperate with things that are pleasant and cheerful." Alex said with a sigh. "And she was draining him somehow. I don't know how but she was doing it."

"What would happen if you pulled a soul out of a body and just left it alone." Elena asked.

"What do you mean? Alex asked, frowning.

"What if someone used one of those stones that we put Tyler in, the… soul stones… but they didn't put anyone in the body." She clarified. "When we were leaving, I saw Portia take one of those stones out of the basket that she had been putting Damon's blood into."

"I think I can answer that." Avril said having heard the voices when she arrived and come looking. "I had Jessica look up some of the images on the sarcophagus. They looked familiar but all my books are at home." She came in and sat on the edge of the bed. "They're preservation symbols. If the right spells were done someone could become a Sleeping Beauty."

"Are you saying we buried my mother alive?" Stefan asked, horrified as much by that as by what he had witnessed in his brothers head.

"Not precisely, but she wasn't precisely dead either." Avril said. "I won't know more until I've examined the remains. Right now it's just a supposition."

"I'm not sure it's a good idea to disturb those remains as yet." Alex said. "And when we do you two can baby sit Damon down in the basement."

Stefan nodded. "I almost don't want to tell him."

"He'll remember. I didn't make him forget anything." Alex said, and then brought her sister up to speed.

"That's a pretty powerful set up." Avril said. "We're talking something that would require a witch and a necromancer to set up and we don't normally work together except under duress or rare occasions when you wind up with one of each in a family. "

"Like you two." Elena said.

Avril nodded.

"Regardless… we need more information before we do anything about it; if we do anything about it." Stefan said. "After what I saw… I don't know that I want her back amongst the living. Damon was her favorite. She doted on him. If he wasn't so much like our father I think she would have emasculated him with how much she doted. " He admitted, but his brother had always been his own man even in the face of their mothers affection. "For her to treat him like that only to bleed him for some spell… "

"You think your mother is evil?" Elena asked.

"I think I don't want to risk finding out that my parents are exactly like Michael and Esther. " Stefan said and ran a hand through his hair.

"Maybe they were bleeding him so that they wouldn't have to sacrifice him in the end. Maybe it's about volume of blood not actual death." Elena suggested. "We don't know what was going through their mind and we have no way of knowing. Better not to assume."

"I want to know more about Portia." Stefan said."That means talking to Katherine."

"Why on earth do you want to know more about that woman?" Elena asked.

"Because I believe she was the last person to see my mother alive. I remember that day pretty clearly. I'd gone back to my room to read, Damon had poked his head in to check on me before going to lie down because his head hurt… and then my father came in to tell me that my mother was gone. I think that when Damon left the room, she and whoever else was with her put her into that stone. The stone that for some reason Katherine saw fit to take along with the book. Portia is a vampire and if anything Katherine has said was true, she knew her well. I think she was sent back here do something. "

Damon stirred on the bed. "You know, it's really hard to sleep when you people are talking about and over me. Especially the about part." He said turning onto his side, his head still in Alexandra's lap. "Mom will keep." He said with a sigh. "She's kept this long, she'll keep a little longer. Klaus has to be dealt with before we do anything else." He nestled in and reached up to take Alex's hand. God he loved that stuff she gave him. "I'm tired of that son of a bitch turning up."

"You're right." Stefan said. "We'll table it for now."

"Good. No need for you to go see Katherine then." He said, closing his eyes.

"I'm perfectly safe with Katherine." Stefan said.

Damon opened one eye. " No one is perfectly safe with Katherine. Not even Katherine. Take Elena with you. Better yet take Elena out to dinner and forget Katherine." He closed the eye again. "I'm going to have this woman drive me home. Unless you need me for something."

"No, go on home." Stefan said. "one question though… that stuff you gave Damon… Is it as potent as vervain? Would it make Klaus docile?"

"No. And I would need a sample of his blood to create it. It's a very specialized potion. We're just going to have to hit him with enough Vervain that he can't do anything when I go in and drain his energy."

"No." Damon said. "I don't want you anywhere near him. "

"We have to make physical contact with him to make the transfer." Avril said. "Perhaps we should work on concentrating the vervain to compensate for the added boost he gets from being a hybrid. I don't want to use wolvesbane because Tyler has to go back in there. "

"Not a bad plan. I can take down a few of the protections so you can come out to the property. Let me get Damon home and you can come out for Dinner and we'll work on it."

"I'll see you then. If all goes well I'll bring Henry with me and keep up the illusion just in case."

"Sounds good." She said and patted Damon on the arm. He sat up and they got out of the bed.

"Remember what I said. No Katherine." Damon told Stefan as they walked out of the room. Half way down the stairs he turned to Alex. "I will bet you a weekend in Venice that he will be at Katherine's door sometime tonight."

"With or without Elena?" She asked.

"Without." He said.

"ooh I'll take that bet. She'll stick to him like glue after his disappearance the other night. If you're right I'll pack the handcuffs."

"I like the sound of that." He said, although his mind was somewhere else. He would rather it was on a sun filled vacation with Alex. Those thoughts were sane and safe and didn't involve him being bled by his mother. Or that they might have buried her alive. Or that Katherine had stolen the items that he had been supposed to find and put in the crypt. Or had Portia taken them and given them to Katherine? "Venice … or maybe Tuscany … and handcuffs." He grinned. "The question is does it count as with Elena if he doesn't know she's there?"

"Hmm… we'll have to sort that out won't we."