Chapter 21: The Post-it
Damon limped into the Boarding House later that night, his pride hurting as much as his body. He made his way into the living room where he could hear Elena pacing the floor.
"Hey…" he greeted with a weak smile.
Elena stopped moving and whipped around to see him leaning in the door jab. "Oh my god Damon!" she ran to him and immediately threw her arms around him. He winced a little and she pulled away to look at him. "What happened to you?" she exclaimed, glancing at the blood down his shirt and the slowly healing bruises and cuts on his face.
Damon pushed himself off the door jab and ambled down the couple steps to the couch. "Icarus happened to me." He grumbled out throwing himself on the couch.
Elena sat down next to him, resting her hand on his thigh. "I thought we agreed that we were going to steer clear of him until we knew more." She stated, caught between being happy that he was okay, and angry that he sought him out.
Damon closed his eyes, and tried to focus on healing his bones. "He pissed me off." He replied simply.
Elena rolled her eyes, her anger winning over with his decree. "And that gives you a reason to go after him when we know next to nothing about him? Damon…you're lucky this is all he did to you." She gestured to him. Elena sighed and curled into him gingerly careful not to hurt him. Damon didn't seem to mind as he wrapped his arms around her. "I think we need some outside help." She announced quietly and cautiously.
"Such as…" he trailed off.
Elena's eyes glanced up to him quickly before lowering again. "Katherine."
Damon's eyes popped open in surprise. "No." he disputed with finality.
Elena leaned up a little and shrugged her shoulders. "Too bad, I already called her."
"What you two are pals now?" he asked sarcastically.
She shook her head. "No, but she obviously made herself available for a reason. Isobel helped me get in contact with her." she admitted calmly.
Damon whined childishly, and dropped his head over the back of the couch. "Elena! I don't wanna see her." He complained. He groaned out loud when he heard her.
"Well that's rude….after everything I've done for you the least you could do is be happy to see me. Hello Elena. So you need my help…again." Katherine slowly came down the stairs to stand behind the couch resting her hands on the cushion on either side of Damon's head looking down at him. "It didn't take you too long to move in on my double, I see." She teased. "Isobel was quite pleased with your choice Elena…it's the one she would have made." Katherine waltzed around the couch and sat in the chair opposite them. "She tells me you're dealing with a shapeshifter…they're pretty dangerous." She sing-songed, bouncing her crossed leg over her knee.
Damon glared at her. "What do you know about them?"
Katherine nodded once. "Straight to the point…good. I hate small talk." Katherine shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know much, they pre date me and you several times over. I know they're rare, and that they're stronger in their true form." She disclosed confidently.
Elena leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "Isobel already told us all that. Do you know anything else?" she pressed apprehensively.
Katherine paused, debating whether or not to get so involved. "They are very hard to kill." She stressed, staring at Damon with hard brown eyes. "Shapeshifters can only be killed in their true form."
Elena smiled a little and turned to Damon with hope in her eyes. "Well that's something…we just don't know what his true form looks like."
"I do." Damon stated. "Icarus showed it to me tonight, right after he handed my ass to me." He grumbled resentfully.
Katherine raised a brow high on her forehead. "Icarus? I've heard of him…kind of a dick if you ask me." She commented dryly.
"He was pretending to be Damon to get to me…now I think he's just playing with us." Elena explained tunneling her hands through her long tresses.
"And I've had enough of it. We've been stepping on eggshells trying to avoid this arrogant asshole, when what we should be doing is coming at him from all angles." Damon ground out heatedly as he got to his feet and poured himself a drink.
Katherine turned a little to look at him. "Well if you want my opinion-"
Damon turned his head a little to smirk at her condescendingly. "I don't."
Katherine rolled her eyes and Elena looked skyward. "Damon….she's trying to help." Elena told him giving him a stern look.
Damon turned back to the bar downing the drink before pouring another.
Katherine crossed her arms and pinned her gaze on her doppelganger. "I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart…I owe you for getting me out of that tomb and for taking care of Klaus. After this we're even…" She emphasized, her words turning snarky and measured as if she was talking to an insolent child. "Which means Elena you can't call me every time someone's trying to kill you. I'm not Isobel, so you're death…not gonna bother me that much." She affirmed with a careless shrug.
Damon leaned in and sniffed her hair, frowning in confusion. "What is that perfume you wearing…Heartless Bitch?" he mocked, before coming to sit back next to Elena.
Katherine's smile lacked humor, her eyes following his form back to its original spot. "Funny. Although, pushing my buttons, not a very smart thing to do when I'm you're only hope." Damon shut up and she smirked. "So…tell me how this lovely development happened? I'm dying to know." She asked impiously as she gestured at the two of them.
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Lucia rushed into Stefan's room where he had fallen asleep next to Caroline. "Stefan…wake up." His eyes slowly opened to stare at his sister questioningly. "Katherine's here." She whispered urgently. Lucia had been around for a long time, but Katherine always scared her.
Stefan frowned and opened his ears to here the conversation downstairs. "She's here to help." He slipped out of the bed and out of Caroline's arms reluctantly. "You shouldn't be worried, she's not here to hurt anyone…Elena probably called her." He confirmed.
Lucia looked at him incredulously. "Seriously? What are they BFF's or something?" she mocked. She always thought the acronyms teens used nowadays were ridiculous.
Stefan rolled his eyes. "No, but Katherine helped them before, she saved Elena when I attacked her…" Stefan paused thinking things over. "She may not admit it, but she's different now…she has nothing to run from anymore." He concluded listening in on the rest of the conversation downstairs.
He wasn't ready to face her yet. He had come to terms with a lot of things on his time away but Katherine was not one of them. All his feelings and thoughts about her were still jumbled and out of sorts and until they were organized he couldn't face her. He decided to stay upstairs with Caroline and until she left.
Lucia shook her head. "Katherine can't change Stefan…not when she's been this way for five centuries. She doesn't care about anyone but herself, and she can't be trusted." She announced firmly.
"You know she can hear you right?" a voice said from behind her. Lucia whipped around to see Katherine standing in the doorway. She laughed and stepped into the room glancing at Stefan, before locking her eyes back on Lucia. "Hello Lucia…it's been a long time since I've seen you. Hi Stefan…" her voice softened when she spoke to him. "You look better."
Stefan blinked trying to hold his emotions together. "I am."
She smiled…actually smiled. "Good." Katherine glanced at Caroline and took in her ill state. "Looks like she got the bad end of a wolf bite."
"How did you know that?" Stefan asked curiously.
"I've known a couple of vampires that got bit…didn't turn out so well for them." she commented heedlessly. She noticed the vile of liquid on the nightstand. "But you seem to have something that will help…only a few witches know the cure, but they like to keep it hush hush."
Lucia frowned. "It's a cure?"
"Maybe. If anything it'll slow down the process…but I never knew much about that witchy nonsense." She said with a wave of her hand. "I always left that to Emily." Katherine roamed around the room, letting her hand trail over the books and the desk. "You know I always loved this room…so many memories."
Lucia rolled her eyes. "And I'm leaving." She wasn't in the mood for Katherine's bullshit conversation. She had heard enough of it in 1864 for one lifetime.
Stefan cursed Lucia silently for leaving him with her. She still had a hold on him…somehow after all these years she still pulled at his heartstrings. "Is there a reason you're up here Katherine?" he asked keeping his voice calm.
Katherine turned around to smile at him. "I heard you up here…I wanted to see how you were doing. Is that such a shock to you?"
"Yes." He admitted. "Everything you do is a shock to me. I never know what to expect with you…except for your lies." Stefan added bitterly.
Katherine laughed. "What makes you think I ever lied to you Stefan?" She stepped closed to him. "Maybe in the beginning…but I was worried that you'd be afraid of what I was."
Stefan shook his head. "I don't want to do this with you again Katherine…you trying to convince me that the love we had was real is not going to work." He wanted to believe it was real because he had invested so much into it, but he knew that if she really truly loved him she wouldn't have been tempted by Damon and she never would have waited as long as she did to find him.
The older vampire shook her head sadly. "But it was real Stefan! Don't you remember any of it? You're love for me was real and pure and so was mine for you." She continued to insist.
"You were selfish…you wanted us both, you couldn't settle for just me." His voice hitched painfully.
"I was…all I knew was how to get what I want, but it didn't change how I felt about you…how I still feel about you." Her voice was softer than usual and open. When Stefan stared at her silently she reached out to him. "Can we talk somewhere Caroline isn't?" she asked glancing at her.
Stefan frowned, as if just remembering the other vampire in the room. "Not now…I need to feed her." He moved away from Katherine quickly and to Caroline's bed. "We have much bigger problems to deal with right now than this."
She sighed and bit her lip, trying to push away the feeling of rejection. It was uncommon to her, and she was surprised by how much it hurt. "Okay…" she walked towards the door and watched him pull out a bag of blood from the cooler beside the nightstand and pour it into a mug. "I still love you Stefan…even if you don't believe it."
Stefan chose to not look at her. If he did, he wasn't sure what he'd do. He was so conflicted by his feelings. Katherine, the woman he pined over for years was still in love with him, and he was quickly falling for the blonde vampire sleeping in his bed. It was like Katherine enjoyed barging into his life the moment things were looking up just to trample all over the progress he'd made.
"Hey…" Caroline murmured.
Stefan was shaken out of his reverie by her voice. "Hi…how are you feeling?"
"Eh. I could be better…you could be lying here with me." She said playfully in a raspy tone.
He smiled. "I will…you just need to eat first." He poured some of the concoction in the mug and handed it to her. Caroline willingly drank down the whole mug, getting used to the taste of the potion. She handed it back and Stefan placed it on the nightstand before slipping in next to her. "There…better?"
She nodded. "Much." She let him wrap her in his arms.
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Elena watched Damon pour another drink. "Drinking yourself into a stupor is not going to make this any better." She commented.
Damon turned to her. "It takes a lot to get me drunk…this is taking the edge off enough not to hunt Katherine down and kill her." He grumbled knocking back another shot.
"Because of what she said, about not caring if I died…did you really expect that she would?" she asked laughing a little. She got off the couch and walked up behind him wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his back.
"Not that." He looked up to the ceiling. "She was torturing Stefan up there. Reminding him how real their love was…how she still feels about him." Damon frowned, feeling defensive of his little brother.
Elena kissed his shoulder. "Stefan is smarter than that, Damon…he would never fall for it."
Damon put the glass down and turned around, looking her in the eyes and trailing his hands up and down her back. "He wants to believe it, Elena…he wants it to be real, but years of convincing himself that it wasn't, is weighing heavily on him." He explained knowingly. Stefan never had to tell him all these things because he was an open book…he wore his emotions clearly on his face.
Elena frowned. "Do you think he still loves her?"
Damon took a second to answer. "I don't know…maybe, but regardless of whether he does or not, she still has a hold on him."
Elena looked towards the stairs. "I thought he'd moved past that…I mean he told me he was over Katherine a long time ago." It didn't bother her that Stefan lied; it upset her that he thought he had to.
Damon huffed out a laugh. "You were his girlfriend of course he told you he was over her." He stated playing with the tips of her hair.
Elena narrowed her gaze at him. "Are you over Katherine?" she mocked a serious voice.
Damon smiled lovingly. "Absofuckinlutely."
She smiled and continued playfully. "But I'm your girlfriend…of course you'd say you're over her." She threw his words back at him.
Damon placed his hands on either side of her face, and blue eyes met brown. "I was over her the minute I found out she wasn't in the tomb." His thumb stroked her cheek delicately. "And I knew I'd never love her again the day I fell in love with you."
Elena closed her eyes in bliss and pressed her cheek against his chest inhaling the scent that was uniquely Damon. "You never told me exactly when that was."
"That's for me to know and for you to-"
Elena looked up at him with humor in her eyes. "Dot, dot, dot?" When Damon just smiled she smiled back. "I figured you wouldn't tell me…it would take away the mystery of it all."
Damon chuckled lightly. "You're telling me you don't have any idea of when it could have been?"
Elena laughed nervously. "I could guess but I'd probably be wrong."
"Probably." He teased before smiling down at her. "But it doesn't matter when it happened, just know that I am in love with you…and I will be for a very long time." He stated seriously.
"For eternity?" she shot back, looking at him through her lashes. When Damon's face closed a little she realized he still wasn't comfortable with the idea of her turning. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you Damon, what is so wrong with that?"
Damon pulled away and turned towards the bar. "I thought we weren't going to discuss this for a few more years?" his voice seemed hollow and Elena didn't like it.
She rolled her eyes. "Well I lied then. We can't avoid the subject every time it comes up Damon…sooner or later it's going to happen." She argued heatedly.
Damon turned around and frowned down at her. "Then we'll talk about it later." He pressed.
She stepped closer to him. "I don't want to wait until later…don't you think we've waited long enough?" Elena asked holding his left hand in hers, fingering his ring. "Lexi told me that when you love someone enough you want to turn them so you can be with them forever…why don't you want that with me?" Elena let her insecurities seep out; Damon's insistence to ignore the topic made her feel uncertain.
Damon shook his head. "No, no you don't understand. It's not that I don't want that with you, I do…I just don't wish this life for you." He insisted emphatically.
"Damon I can make my own decisions." She argued firmly. "All everyone tries to do is make decisions for me. Please don't let yourself be included in that group." She beseeched, seeing the change in Damon's face immediately. He didn't want to be that person; it was the whole reason they became such good friends, because didn't stop her from doing what she wanted. "I love you. I've already come to terms with what I'm giving up, and it's all worth it to be with you." She reached her arms up to wrap around his neck, and pushed herself up onto her toes to meet his lips with hers.
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Sunday morning had Elena and Damon in a mood. He took her home to check on Jenna and Jeremy and to grab more clothes for Elena. The first glitch of the day started as such: The front door opened to a pissed off Jenna on the other side.
"Damon…so nice of you to bring my niece home." Sarcasm dripped from each word as she crossed her arms and glared at him. Her gazed swung to Elena. "You have no idea how cranky I am at you. Spending days at a time and your boyfriend's house, calling once in a while to let me know you're alive, not to mention missing school…what is going on with you Elena?" Jenna shook her head, and opened the door further to let them in. They sat in the living room awkwardly.
"I'm sorry Jenna." Elena apologized sincerely. "I won't miss anymore school, I promise. I want be here more, but if I am it's going to be with Damon…so please just deal with it." She exasperated.
Jenna sighed, and looked skyward. "Fine." She threw her hands up in surrender. "I'll deal…I won't like it, but if it means I get to see you more." Jenna half smiled. "And Jeremy really seems to miss you." They talked for a while longer and Jeremy came down still in his pj's and a messy mop of hair to greet his sister. Jenna still wasn't happy with Damon; his 'kidnapping' as she put it, of her niece left her perturbed with his presence.
Damon followed Elena upstairs to her room so she could grab some more clothes. "I wish I didn't have to lie to her so much. We have to tell her what's going on sooner or later." Elena mentioned as she moved to her dresser pulling things out of the drawers.
Damon threw himself on her bed. "We will…let's just get over this hump first, before adding more mess to a messy situation."
Elena nodded then looked at the mirror. Glitch number two: the post it. Elena frowned and reached for the pink post it stuck to her mirror. Elena, 2343 Freeman drive. Come alone. The paper shook in her hands. "Damon…"
"Yeah?"
"I think Icarus was here." She handed him the post it and he glanced at it. "I think I should go." She mumbled.
Damon's eyes shot to her. "What? Are you insane! Elena it's a set up!" he exclaimed, angered although not shocked by her selflessness.
Elena sat down next to him on the bed. "I know…but he holds all the cards right now, and if we don't do what he says people are going to die." She pressed, thinking about her family and friends.
Damon looked at her closely and with worry etched on his chiseled face. "Elena, if you do this you will die." It killed him how much Elena cared and loved others…so much so she'd sacrifice her life for them. It was a scary thought and he hoped she would never do anything that reckless…and leave him here to mourn for her.
Elena knew if she said anything else Damon would find a way to counter it. She kept silent, letting the subject drop for now. "We should probably call Katherine…" Elena suggested.
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Katherine's heels clicked as she leisurely walked down the sidewalk of the suburban street. No one knew she was here…she told Elena not to go, and after some bickering she finally conceded. She sighed. Katherine hated shapeshifters, but she needed to protect her family lineage. But she would never admit that to anyone.
She walked up the steps of the house and tucked her straight hair behind her ears. "Showtime." She whispered to herself with a smile. She opened the door and was glad to know that whoever's house this was, was already dead. The house was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly. Katherine put her acting skill to work as she slowly walked into the living room, her body guarded.
"Elena…you came. That's brave of you." Icarus' voice echoed in the open room. He was standing by the window, the light shining on his true face.
"What do you want from me?" she added a wobble to her voice, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Icarus laughed. "What everyone else wants from you…your blood." He replied casually.
She looked at him with scared curiosity. "But why?" She took a hesitant step closer.
Icarus blinked, put off by her interest. Most of his victims didn't bother to stop screaming to question him. "You're not supposed to exist." He pronounced annoyed. "You've caused a glitch in the system."
Katherine frowned. This was information she had never heard before. "What system?"
Icarus stepped towards her, nearly closing the gap between them. He pointed at her with one long finger. "You my dear are asking way too many questions."
Katherine forced her chest to rise and fall heavily. "Look I'll give you what you want okay, just leave my family alone." She offered desperately. It seemed like something she would say.
Icarus frowned deeply. "You're sacrificing yourself? But you don't even know the torturous trials I plan on putting you through yet." His words were laced in sarcasm, although he did seem a bit disappointed. "It was going to be fun…" he pouted before walking towards the bar.
Katherine turned around to look at his broad back. "I'm not afraid of what you'll do to me."
He glanced at her over his shoulder, gracing her with a sick smile. "You should be."
Katherine nodded. "I get it…I shouldn't be alive. I'm the doppelganger of a doppelganger. But I didn't ask for this." Her voice lowered to a softer tone. "All I wanted was to be normal. A normal girl with her normal friends and a normal boyfriend, but instead I'm surrounded by the abnormal. Tell me how that makes sense?" she asked him rhetorically, fake emotion plastered on her face.
Icarus took a sip of his drink, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. "Is this supposed to work?" he gestured vaguely with his hand. "This 'woe is me; my life sucks 'cause my boyfriend's a vampire' speech?" he leisurely strolled towards her and stopped when only an inch or two separated them. "If you think you are fooling me…" Enter glitch number three: "…Katherine." He emphasized dangerously leaning towards her ear. "Then you are very, very wrong."
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A/N: Sooo sorry for the late update but with Christmas and then new years I got a little held up. But an extra long chapter for you guys to make up for it. I'm excited for the next chapter it shall be interesting to say the least.
Also I'd like to credit Ethereal Demon for her inadvertent suggestion about Icarus only being able to die in his true form. Utter brilliance! Thank you.
Thank you for all your reviews and comments I love them! Hope everyone had and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Vanessa