I'm back again, and now you're gonna find out what I did to Damon *gg*.
Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. EXTRA thanks to AVECIA, who – as always – did an amazing beta job!
I don't own anything 'bout the Vampire Diaries, I'm just messing with them for fun.
On with it!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
The moment Elena saw Damon lying on the floor, not moving, never mind trying to stand up her whole world came to a sudden halt.
There were no sounds, no colors, nothing. Only Damon, and the garish color of his blood in the otherwise grey-seeming surroundings.
Then there was a pain right were her heart resided, spreading out in circles through her whole body.
She couldn't breath around it, couldn't even imagine to ever move again. Right until the moment this creature had pounced on Alaric again and had ripped his throat open.
From the corner of her eyes she saw the man slumping to the ground, trying to stench the flow of blood, but not really succeeding. It didn't matter though – he would die, and simply wake up again.
But the fact that the teacher was out of the way, meant the thing now zeroed in on Damon.
Not happening, were her only thoughts, before she blurred forward right into the path of it.
She could hear Bonnies voice, but it seemed like far away, or packed away in cotton wool. She said something about Kitsune, fox and the tails, but she would lie if she said she paid attention to it.
Elena couldn't care less for how to weaken it, or the fastest way to kill it.
She wasn't planning on making this one fast or painless.
Because, she figured, when there are not enough pieces left to fit into a lunch box… well, that would do the job, too.
A cold, calculating, malicious smile stole its way onto her face. Then she crouched down and attacked.
Time didn't matter anymore, nor did the deep scratches the creatures claws left on her skin.
Soon the jacket she wore was hanging in strips off of her, and she knew that neither shirt, nor jeans would be salvageable.
She didn't care. Nothing mattered, but to rip it apart, to make it bleed.
She relished in the sound of ribs braking, and the feeling of blood coating her fingers.
The Kitsune finally realized that there was no chance for it to win this fight, and it got desperate, clawing right across her face, trying to take her eyes out.
But even as it watched, the wounds began to heal again, and soon not even scars were left.
And all her friends could do, was to stand there, and watch in shock and horror as sweet, little Elena turned into some sort of savage warrior. They had known that she had changed – it had been more than obvious.
Everyone had seen that there was a new, hard edge to her. She was more confident, was a woman sure of herself. But this was beyond what anyone had imagined. She attacked with accuracy, going for the weakest points on the body, and got out of the way of most counter attacks, light footed as a dancer.
And the blood coating her didn't even seem to faze her in the least. It was a gruesome picture – and an eye-opener.
Where the 'old' Elena would have gasped in horror and would have rushed to Damons side, trying to find out if he was okay, not caring about anything else… well, this 'new' one seemed to only care about getting rid of the danger and handing out revenge while she did it.
Because, what good would it do her to break down in tears, just to be attacked herself?
Xoxoxo
Isobel stood beside Katherine, a sad look on her face.
All she had ever wanted for her daughter was to live a normal, human life. She had meant it, as she had said that the Salvatore brothers would be a curse for her.
But the life she led now was even worse. Because with the brothers, she, at least, would have been reasonably safe. There would have been no need to learn how to fight, how to kill.
No need to grow hard enough to not care about the blood of another being running down her face.
Katherine saw the pained look on Isobel's face, but for once decided to let it slide.
She knew the woman mourned the lost innocence of her daughter, and it wasn't her place to tell her that it had to be like this.
Looking back to Elena, she saw that the fight was finally nearing its end.
The Fox Demon was staggering on its feet, visibly weak from blood loss and injuries.
And then Elena went for the kill. Taking a page out of Damons book (because contrary to his beliefs, she knew what had happened to Bree), she crushed her hand through skin, muscle and bones, and ripped the still beating heart right out of its body.
As the Kitsune slumped to the ground, eyes wide open in shock, she let the now useless organ fall to the ground, and stood there, staring into nothing.
The sounds of retching shook her out of the trance she was in, and she looked back to the house, only to see Matt hunching over, getting rid of his breakfast. She would apologize to him, only it would've been a lie. There was nothing she felt sorry for – only maybe that he, and the others, had to watch this.
Then she swallowed a few times, to get rid of the sudden knot in her throat, and slowly, deliberately, made her way over to Damon.
Kneeling beside him, she took a moment before she carefully turned him around, so he was lying on his back.
His eyes were open, staring up at her… and they were blinking. She then noticed the rise and fall of his chest, and the steady heartbeat under her hand.
He was alive.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling such an intense sense of relief that she got dizzy from it. As she opened them again, she was frowning. He was alive, and obviously awake. Then why wasn't he moving?
"Hey, can you hear me? Damon?"
But he just stared up at her, not moving even a single finger, only blinking and breathing - and somehow managing to look pissed, just through the expression of his eyes.
Tipping her head to the side she was lost in thoughts for a moment, before she carefully rolled him onto his side.
Pushing his shirt up, she let her hand wander up his spine, paying close attention to every vertebra. Her hand stopped over a patch of skin that was black and blue – and were she could feel the telltale texture of a broken bone.
Sighing she rolled him back onto his back – even more careful than before, and cushioned his head in her lap.
"Well, this sucks. But I guess it beats being dead. It will take a few hours to heal, though."
With that she wiped as much of the Kitsune's blood off of her wrist as possible, and then bit into it till it was bleeding.
She opened his mouth with the other hand, and then let her blood drip into it, massaging his throat so he wouldn't choke on the very thing that was meant to heal him.
"I know it's not quite as powerful as vampire blood, but I guess you're as immune to it as I am – Katherine's blood has never done me any good when I had been injured. Anyway, it will speed up your healing, and it's better than nothing."
She heard the others coming, but she couldn't quite bring herself to look away from him right now.
She had been so fucking afraid that she had lost him.
"Elena? Is he… he's alright… right?"
It took some effort for her to lift her gaze to meet Bonnie's. But her best friend looked so worried, that she couldn't bring herself to snap at her. So she forced a slight smile onto her face and answered her.
"Of course he's gonna be alright. A few hours, and he will be as good as new. Don't worry."
"Oh. Okay but… he isn't moving."
Way to point out the obvious…
"Yeah, I know. He's cracked his spine. So no moving until it has knitted itself back together again. But like I already said: he's going to be quite alright."
Bonnie just nodded then, and sat down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, not caring that she got blood on herself.
It was good to be home again, she realized. Not even this show of raw savagery had shattered the bond with her best friend.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
An hour later Elena was stepping out of the en suite bathroom to Damon's room, wrapped in only a towel and hair still wet.
Damon was lying in his bed now, and by the looks of it he was asleep.
Elena had – with the help of Stefan – carried him up here earlier, so he could spend his forced time-out in at least some form of comfortable surroundings.
She was sure he had been mortified that they had to carry him – that he could do nothing for himself until he was healed again, but there had been no way around it.
While Elena had stayed up here with Damon, the others had busied themselves with getting rid of the mess she had left behind.
In hindsight she thought that maybe she should have helped them – it had been kind of her fault that the blood had been everywhere.
But that was the thing with hindsight – it came to bite you in the ass when it was already too late.
So she had instead peeled the clothes off of Damon, pleased that the deep scratches over his right arm and chest were already healed – the scratches where the blood that had send her into this frenzy had come from. Not needing to patch him up, she had washed the blood off and then covered him with a blanket, before she went for a shower herself.
It had taken a while till the water that had run off her body had lost its pink hue, because by that time the blood on her body had already mostly dried up.
But now she was all pretty and clean again.
She went to Damon's cupboard, making a silent note to herself to go get her own clothes from the Bed and Breakfast she had left them at.
Dressed in an old pair of sweats and a shirt a few sizes too big for her, she trudged over to the bed and sat on a chair beside it. She would lie down next to him – she was tired enough – but refrained from it as to not jostle him. She knew he would be okay soon enough, but it would go faster if he just slept on. Like this his body could concentrate of patching itself up and nothing else.
Just as she was about to get comfortable in the chair, there was a knock on the door, closely followed by Alaric as he entered the room.
He wasn't looking as if it had been his choice to come in here, so she guessed there had been another 'loser gets to bite the lemon' game.
Rolling her eyes she turned to fully face him and waited for him to speak. As he just stood there, looking more uncomfortable by the second, she had mercy on him.
"Do you need something?"
"Yes…well, I don't need anything. But Isobel is…to be honest, she kind of being a royal bitch right now. I was hoping you would come down, so I can explain what Damon and I had found."
Lifting one of her eyebrows she studied him more closely, only now seeing that he looked kind of stressed out.
"What you really want is to get on with it already, so she can go make herself scarce again, right?"
"Eh…would it be terribly rude if I said yes?"
She had to laugh at this – it was typical for her birthmother that she had everyone hanging on their last nerves in record time.
"Don't worry about it. She's usually good at riling me up quite a bit, too.
I'll be down in a few, okay?"
Looking relieved, the teacher just nodded, turned around on the spot, and made his way back down again.
With a last look at Damon she got up and followed her aunt's fiancé downstairs.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
The situation that awaited her downstairs was kind of chaotic. Jenna and Isobel were standing so close to each other that they had to feel the breath of the other woman on their faces, shouting and gesticulating like lunatics. Alaric was standing beside them in a fruitless attempt to get them to calm down.
Katherine was lounging in an armchair, trying to pretend that she was filing her nails. Anyone with eyes could see that she was enjoying the show, though.
The others were just standing or sitting around, not quite knowing what to do with themselves.
Elena just rolled her eyes, stalked over to the women, took Isobel by her upper arm and pulled her to another armchair. She pushed her down onto it and gave her a pointed look that screamed 'stay put'.
Than she turned around, looked at Jenna and nodded to the couch.
Her aunt just gave her a sheepish look and a shrug of the shoulders and sat down, pulling Alaric with her.
"I don't even want to know what that was about. Really, I don't. Let's just get this over with, so Isobel can be on her merry way, shall we?"
Getting nods and murmurs of agreement from all around, she leaned against the liquor cabinet, and waited for Alaric to tell them what he and Damon had found out.
"Okay, so… Damon found a police report back from 1869.
It was… quite disturbing to say the least. Basically, the Founders Council had imprisoned a woman and accused her of being a witch. As she wouldn't confess to it, they reverted to torture.
In the end they got their confession and burned her on the stake. We can't be sure that it is actually her but… the woman really was a witch, albeit probably not one that would have been a danger to Mystic Falls if just left alone. Anyway, being a witch mixed with the quite awful way she died, she would fit the profile."
At his next words he turned around so he could look Bonnie in the eyes, his face a mask of regret.
"It was Emily Bennett."
Xoxoxoxoxoxo
Done for today!
Now, I have one – or two – questions to ask.
First: I'm writing on a new story. BUT, from the 20th November on, I'll be away for six weeks, so I don't know if I should start posting it, or just wait till I'm back. Any suggestions?
Second: As I'll be away, I wanted to know what you prefer. Should I bring this story to a faster end than originally planned, and finish it before I go, or should I make it longer still. But THEN you'll probably have to live with a six week pause as soon as I'm away.
I let you do your thing now – just click on the little button below and let me know what you think (about my questions AND this chapter)!
So long,
Zora