A/N: Thank you so much for your gorgeous reviews! :):):)
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.
Chapter 8
Six months of grief followed by the most stunning, exhilarating news must've taken its toll on a person - that's how Caroline hastily explained to herself the whirlwind of emotions triggered by Klaus' appearance. Her emotions were just all over the place anyway and a mixture of relief, worry, hope, anger, annoyance, joy and fear that washed over her was merely a proof of that.
She was so busy sorting out her feelings that only after a moment she realized that she was staring and quickly averted her eyes hoping that no one had noticed, because self-awareness concerning the matter was embarrassing enough.
"What is this?" Klaus asked in a low, impatient, menacing voice, glancing around the attic with wary eyes before shifting his gaze back to Mikael.
"That's my leverage," Mikael replied flippantly, regarding Klaus with cold, calculating eyes. "The location of the weapon in exchange for their lives."
Klaus narrowed his eyes at Mikael and snarled in a very believable amusement, Stefan would give him that. But before Klaus had a chance to respond to Mikael's ultimatum, Caroline cut in.
"You do know that by a weapon he means an infant, right?" she snapped, intuitively focusing on Davina whose mouth twitched at the inquiry.
Caroline had no idea what exactly was going on and the notion of Klaus' baby was still making as much sense to her as atrigonometric equation would to a preschooler, but this wasn't going to stop her from trying to navigate her way through this mess just fine.
Klaus' eyes darted to her and she found the trace of hesitant curiosity in his eyes both amusing and in some odd way motivating.
"The baby is part-witch and a dangerous weapon in the hands of someone evil," Davina said in a resolute, steady voice.
"Like him?" Stefan inquired innocently, pointing to Mikael.
Caroline tilted her head to the side, arching an eyebrow at Davina who inhaled sharply.
"Davina, why are you helping him?" Marcel suddenly asked in a gentle, but demanding voice, stepping forward. "Whatever his reasons are, they're not what he told you they are," he said, holding Davina's gaze and Caroline shifted her eyes between them, wondering that maybe there was a chance for a breakthrough, because Marcel's words seemed to be having some effect on Davina even if it wasn't exactly showing just yet.
"In an effort to save us all some valuable time," Stefan broke in, attracting everyone's attention and Camille noticed a glimpse of slightly humorous uncertainty in Klaus' eyes when he turned his head to look at Stefan. "I'm not an expert," Stefan said, glancing at Camille, "but it seems to me that this projection mechanism that's at work here isn't going to lead us anywhere." Stefan gave Mikael a thin smile. "Because you seem to be acting on the false assumption that everyone is as horrible and failure of a parent as you," Stefan said in a perfectly even voice.
Klaus blinked, his eyebrows knitting together, but even if it was confusion at all, it lasted only for a second and Marcel squinted warily, noticing a ghost of a pensive smile flicker across Klaus' face.
Camille's eyes shifted to Caroline to deduce from her expression if Stefan risking angering Mikael was a deliberate move or something done on a not very well thought-out impulse. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite infer from Caroline's face which of these scenarios was the case.
"Every parent better than you," Stefan continued in exactly the same tone as before, "which is, like, every parent ever, would choose their child over a bunch of reluctant acquaintances," he concluded with a small sigh. "In other words, your plan is just moronic."
For a moment the room was completely silent, but then the silence was broken by Caroline half-successfully stifling a chuckle.
If Stefan's words merely annoyed Mikael, Caroline's reaction seemed to do the trick and finally make him angry... although Camille couldn't figure out for the life of her how making Mikael angry was going to help. She glanced at Marcel out of the corner of her eye, but he seemed to be sharing her bafflement, looking between Stefan and Caroline as if he was trying to decide if they were stupid or crazy.
"Do you think you're funny?" Mikael snarled derisively, slowly walking up to Stefan and stopping right in front of him.
Stefan smiled briefly, holding his gaze without blinking. "I wasn't trying to be funny," he said in a low voice that sent shivers up Caroline's spine, because she suddenly realized what was coming. "I was just trying to get a chance to see if you can be killed," Stefan added and then pounced on Mikael, drove his fangs into his neck and a split second later Mikael's head toppled off his body and dropped onto the ground with a thud.
Davina screamed. Camille's eyes widened in horror and she stumbled backwards and would've fallen to the floor if it wasn't for Marcel who caught her when she tripped.
Klaus blinked a few times before darting his eyes from Mikael's severed head to Stefan.
Caroline stared at Stefan, not as dismayed as she thought she ought to be.
"This falls under double jeopardy, right?" Stefan asked unenthusiastically, wiping the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.
Klaus smirked. "I'd say it does, ri-"
Caroline groaned. "If you say the r-word I'm going to rip your head off!" she exclaimed in irritation, sending a glare Klaus' way.
Klaus threw his hands up in the air in an apologetic gesture.
xxxdelenaxxx
"I should go get Jeremy and Ric should go get Bonnie. Or the other way around. Either way, I should've gone too," Elena continued arguing in an urgent tone even after Alaric had left and Damon escorted her into the bathroom. "Or we should all go together," she grudgingly allowed after a pause.
Damon closed the door behind them and turned to face her, giving Elena a humorously threatening smile and waggling his finger at her when she made a step forward as if she was planning on trying to get out of the bathroom.
Elena's worried frown changed into a faint smile. "Damon, I'm serious. I can't just be here, soaking in the bathtub while Jeremy's in jail and Bonnie's in that hospital!"
Damon leaned over the edge of the tub, turned off the water and then without a warning swept Elena into his arms and lowered her into the water-filled bathtub.
Elena yelped in surprise, but then snorted in exasperation, giving Damon a pretendedly upset look.
"First of all, Jeremy's in a detention cell, not in jail," Damon said, slumping into the floor near the tub. "As for Bonnie, she's been in that hospital for the last six months. She'll be fine. Ric will get Jeremy out and then they'll go get Bonnie. You're the one who's most at risk under the current circumstances, so you most definitely shouldn't have gone anywhere. I should've gone, but someone has to keep an eye on you. Not that I'm complaining," he added with a lop-sided smile, tucking a strand of hair behind Elena's ear.
She sighed. "I think you forgot to take off my clothes," Elena said, lifting her arms to illustrate the point, glancing at the water dripping off the soaked sleeves of her dress.
Damon narrowed his eyes at her. "I was being a gentleman," he said, smirking.
Stifling a chuckle, Elena quickly leaned over the rim of the tub and pressed a lingering kiss to his mouth.
Damon smiled. "You looked a little hesitant when Ric said that we're leaving as soon as they come back," Damon said, outlining Elena's face with his fingertips.
"You saw that?" She asked with a slightly surprised smile.
"Some things could matter again."
Damon blinked, a fleeting image of Elena saying the words to him in what looked like a homey kitchen passing through his mind.
"You think we should go back to the hospital and check if they're not keeping some people trapped in there," Damon said in a low voice, twirling a strand of Elena's hair around his finger and giving Elena a questioning look when she just gazed at him for a few moments in silence with an expression on her face he wasn't quite sure how to interpret. "I'm not reading you mind," he said with a small, humorously reassuring smile. "I just... think so too," he added with a frown.
"I know," Elena whispered, nuzzling the side of his face and pressing a few feathery-light kisses to his cheek. She couldn't say it, but she was just so happy that he was now free of all those self-imposed convictions that he had to be the one making harsh choices others didn't want to, didn't need to, wouldn't make. Now he didn't have to be the voice of morally ambiguous reason. Now he could just be himself, that version of himself he had repeatedly been going out of his way to conceal.
"We'll talk about it when they come back," Damon said, gathering some bubbles off the water surface and placing them on top of Elena's head. She chuckled. "For now just enjoy your bath before it gets cold," Damon said with s mile, brushing his lips against Elena's cheek and rising to his feet. "Should we order something to eat? What would you like?
"I have a couple of blood bags in my suitcase, so I'm fine," she said in a deliberately casual tone.
Damon widened his eyes at her. "That's right," he said with a smile, inwardly shaking his head at himself. "So you just drink blood, nothing else?" He inquired in that completely sensible voice that Elena wasn't sure it would ever cease to amaze her.
"I don't need anything else, but I can eat and drink everything else if I want to," she replied, recalling their conversation in Georgia and marveling at how unbelievably surprising life could be. It felt so strange, this role reversal of sorts. It wasn't as easy to handle as she had thought it was going to be, but at the same time there was something exhilarating about it. "I would've saved you, in a heartbeat, no question." Elena drew a breath, remembering another conversation and thinking that perhaps that was it. Her chance to give him the life he deserved.
"Do you need a certain kind, type of blood?" Damon continued the inquiry, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest and trying to keep his eyes from straying from Elena's face to the thin fabric of her drenched dress clinging to her skin. He doubted she would've been outraged had he suggested joining her in the tub, but at the same time he thought it might've been rather crude to advance on her like that after being absent from her life for half a year.
As if to further his torment, Elena sat a little straighter in the tub. "No, it just has to be human blood. I mean, theoretically you can also drink animal blood, but it doesn't make you as strong and fast and you may not be able to do all the tricks like compulsion and that zooming thing we did," she explained smilingly, making a little splashes with her hand.
Damon smiled back, holding her gaze and slightly narrowing his eyes at her when he noticed a tiny bit of color rise to her cheeks.
"Human blood... from the bags?" He asked and Elena opened her mouth to answer, but then he sauntered toward her and knelt down next to the tub, his eyes never leaving her face.
She bit her lip, suppressing a smile. "Usually yes, but we can also drink from the vein. I'm not going to feed on you," she added hastily, watching Damon's hand reach out to prop her chin.
"Why not?" He asked, of course, and she thought she had a good answer, but then he kissed her and she forgot what she had wanted to say. "Does it hurt? Was I feeding on you when you were human? Was I hurting you?" He asked, each question making the frown on his forehead deepen.
Elena rolled her eyes. "No," she said, cradling his face in her hands, water dripping off her fingers onto his clothes. "Stop suspecting things like that. You've never hurt me in any way. Well, you force-fed me your blood once, but you did it to save my life," Elena said after a moment of consideration.
Damon drew back and they stared into each other's eyes for a longer while with bated breath until suddenly Damon rose to his feet, kicked off his shoes and stepped into the bathtub.
"That's adorable, but it's not gonna cut it," he said, holding Elena's gaze and then leaning forward and pulling her into an embrace, smiling when Elena laughed under her breath.
"I'm telling you the truth," she stated defiantly, sliding her hands over his shoulders and sending all of his worries that his behavior could be seen as brash into oblivion by pressing herself so close to him he could feel her breasts flatten against his chest.
"I don't doubt that," Damon whispered hoarsely, letting his fingers fumble with the rest of the buttons on the back of Elena's dress. "But there's more to it."
Elena huffed in exaggerated exasperation. "I love you, that's all there's to it," she said with a shrug, helping him take off her dress.
"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Damon asked, squinting.
"I am, but..." Elena shook her head in slight frustration, but then with a playful glimmer in her eyes she got hold of Damon's shirt and tugging it upwards, pulled it over his head. "I don't think we have very much time today, so you need to choose. We can either discuss your wrongdoings or make out," she said, slightly thrusting up her chin in a challenging expression, her eyes laughing.
Damon raised an eyebrow in a speculative grimace, as if he was weighing pros and cons.
Elena narrowed her eyes at him and then running one hand through his hair, her other hand anchored on his shoulder, she inched her lips to his ear and whispered, "I meant, make love."
When she turned her head to look at him, her lips were immediately captured in a passionate kiss, the taste of his lips so familiar that she felt hot tears burn her eyelids at the recurring realization that it was really happening that they had found each other, that he was back, that he was here.
His lips were firm and warm against hers. He kissed her feverishly, thoroughly, barely making it possible for them to breathe between the kisses. It was so gentle and yet so impatient, the way his hands rushed across her body, following, for the first time, the paths they had traveled so many times before.
"If there is something good about this memory loss is that all I know is you," Damon whispered suddenly, his lips co close they were still touching hers, his eyes ablaze. Elena's breath caught in her throat and she looked at him tenderly with wide eyes. "I've never loved anyone but you. I've never kissed anyone but you," he whispered, raising his hand to her face and grazing it with his fingertips. He looked at her with fierce reverence, enthralled, his eyes radiating with her favorite smile.
"What's that face?"
Elena tightened her embrace around him and smiled, blinking back the tears. "That's good," she said quietly, placing her hands on either side of his face and leaning her forehead against his.
She shivered when she felt his hands skim lightly over her skin, push the straps down her shoulders and unclasp her bra. Elena's eyes fluttered open and they looked at each other, lips trembling, their breathing ragged.
"If it's too early..." Damon whispered, cradling her to him carefully, gliding his hand over her arm and her neck, into her hair and looking at her adoringly, but with a trace of anxiety in his eyes, trying not to draw hastily selfish conclusions from the tremors running through her and the tears in her eyes. "Elena, if it's too soon just tell me-"
"Too soon?" She shook her head with a broken laugh, dipping her head to trail a few, light kisses across his chest. "It's six months too late," she whispered, looking up at him and smiling against his mouth when he crashed it against hers.
Hoisting her into his arms, Damon carried Elena out of the bathtub and they landed on the stark-white linens of the bed in a tangled, damp, sweltering mess, hands roaming shakily everywhere they could reach, impatient kisses mingling with slow, leisurely ones and they laughed breathlessly at their mutual, erratic indecisiveness whether they wanted to devour each other in senseless, intoxicating abandon or savor each moment, drag it out until it almost hurt to wait from one tender touch of the lips against the heated skin to the other.
"Was our first night like this?" Damon asked, smiling against Elena's skin, trailing kisses across her collarbones, sliding his hand under her back, snuggling her to him as close as possible.
"The night was mad and feverish," Elena replied a little dreamily, chuckling when Damon nuzzled her neck, tickling her. "But the morning was calm, tranquil... but also kind of mad, because I did some things I never thought I'd do," she blurted out.
Damon groaned and laughed, capturing her lips in a fervent kiss. "Now you're teasing me."
Elena tossed her head to the side, almost losing her breath when she tried to laugh with his lips plastered to her neck, his hands roaming freely, as if he was making a point of not missing even an inch of her skin. "I can show you," she offered, feeling inebriated from joy, like she had had during that summer when everything had seemed so perfect and bright and she suddenly felt a twinge of fear that just like back then, right now something would happen again and shatter everything.
Damon's eyes flew to her face in an instant and he looked at her with concern, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. "Elena?"
She covered his hand with hers and squeezed it tightly. "I was dead too," she whispered with a grimace, "these six months without you. I felt dead," she said, leaning into his touch and kissing him back when with a pained frown he pressed his lips to her.
He kept repeating her name in between the kisses, outlining the contour of her face with his lips, dragging them along her neck. "I love you," he whispered into her ear and drew back to look at her and for a few moments they remained almost motionless, eyes locked, smiles flitting across their faces.
"I love you too," Elena said softly, biting back a smile, reaching out to run her fingertips over his lips and cup his cheek in her hand, "but if we don't want to be walked in on, we need to hurry."
With an impish grin, Damon lowered his lips to hers and Elena laughed, lifting her head off the pillow and meeting his lips half-way.
xxxdelenaxxx
"Am I free to go?" Jeremy asked with a trace of suspicion and annoyance in his voice, exiting the cell that a police officer had opened, motioning for him to walk out of it.
"No. FBI is taking over your case," the officer said, squinting. "Apparently, you've committed something more than a misdemeanor, eh?"
Jeremy stared at him in bewilderment. "What? What kind of nonsense is that?" He exclaimed, not knowing if he should continue arguing or just laugh and see what would happen next. He wondered if Enzo had something to do with this.
They entered a small office at the end of the murky hallway, someone apparently waiting for them there.
"Agent Franklin," the police officer addressed a man who was standing by the desk. "Here he is."
"Look. I don't know what-" Jeremy started, shaking his head in irritation, but then stopped in mid-sentence at the sight of Agent Franklin who had just turned around to face him, his hands in his pockets, a severe look on his face.
"Thank you, officer," Alaric said unsmilingly, giving the policeman a brief, approving nod. "Good work. I'll keep your name in mind."
"Thank you," the police officer said with a smile, straightening up. "We were just doing our job."
Jeremy blinked, but then quickly regained his composure for the sake of not ruining the act. "I didn't do anything!" He shouted.
"Of course you didn't," Alaric said, exchanging a knowing look with the police officer who snorted. "Let's go," he added, grasping Jeremy's arm and heading for the door.
"Agent Franklin?" Jeremy asked in a low voice once they were out in the street, getting into a car.
Alaric shot him a narrow-eyed look. "I was thinking about Agent Lugosi, but that might've been pushing it, what do you think?" He asked, stifling a smile.
Jeremy jumped into the passenger seat with a laugh.
xxxdelenaxxx
Bonnie was pacing around her hospital room, trying to decide what to do.
It was crazy to trust someone she knew for a day. A day! If only. Technically, she knew Jeremy for an hour. However, the dilemma whether she should trust such a person over trusting people she knew for... three months didn't seem too valid either, Bonnie acknowledged with an inward snort. Was there really much difference between an hour and three months? Probably not. Although she had to admit that one of the reasons why she was more inclined to trust Jeremy was that she felt drawn to him in a way that had nothing to do with common sense.
With a sigh, Bonnie slumped onto her bed. Maybe she should run away. Only she had no idea where to go. And what if someone came back to get her while she was gone? Then again, what if Amanda and Dr. August only pretended to care for her well-being? They might just be waiting for her to fall asleep to transport her somewhere far away or even kill her.
Bonnie hid her face in her hands with a stifled groan. Damon was right, they had been watching too many movies. She was getting way too paranoid, conjuring up some ridiculous conspiracy theories on her own. Why would anyone want to hurt her? Or why would anyone suspect such a nice, intriguing, handsome guy as Jeremy of anything bad? Right. Bonnie sighed, inwardly rolling her eyes at herself. Impeccable logic. Handsome guys were never evil, obviously.
Storming to her feet in frustration, Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall and looking out of the window. Paradoxically perhaps, what preoccupied her least was what had happened in the cafeteria, water burning Elena's face – and then Elena's skin healing all by itself. What did Amanda mean by saying that Elena was a monster?
Bonnie shuddered when the door to her room was pushed opened and she frowned at the sight of a doctor she hadn't seen before...
"Hello, it's been too long," the man said with a smirk and then it suddenly dawned on Bonnie that she had seen him before, but in a different uniform. "I'll help you get out of here and you'll help me with something too. How does that sound for a plan?"
"Who are you?" Bonnie asked with a distrustful frown, looking him up and down with wary eyes. "Do I know you?" She asked, something in the man's demeanor striking her as ominous.
Enzo tilted his head from side to side. "Fleetingly," he said at last with a wink and then to Bonnie's dismay and astonishment, he moved toward her on an inhuman speed and pressed a cloth against her mouth, rendering her unconscious within seconds.