Brace For Impact
"If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it."
-Lemony Snicket
And Gone
Chapter Two:
The wooden seat was uncomfortable and stiff. Elena could not stop shifting her weight. She was bored and wanted to leave.
"Losing someone you love is never easy, but when they are forced to leave this world so young, it is all the more difficult for us to accept they have ascended to Heaven. "
"Heaven." Is that what they were calling the Other Side, now? Because last she checked, it was not a peaceful paradise.
"We must remember the good times Jeremy gave us in the wake of his loss."
Elena kept getting distracted. She knew she should make an effort to pay attention. She should at least conjure some emotion for the people she could sense staring at her intently. They were waiting for her to break, but they were waiting on nothing.
Poor little Elena Gilbert, two years go by and she somehow manages to lose every member or her family, adoptive, biological and unrelated in any official capacity, Elena thought sardonically. Because that is what they were thinking, she could tell. The way they waited on bated breath to see her fall apart as opposed to listening to the preacher waxing poetical on her brother's tragically short life.
The thought of their disappointment caused a slight smile to quirk her lips, which was quickly wiped away by a sharp jab. She turned towards the source of the blow but Damon refused to face her. She knew he had been watching her though, otherwise he would have missed the movement that caused him to rebuff her in the first place.
She did not know why it mattered if people sensed something was amiss with her behavior. They would dismiss it as a girl who was too traumatized to function normally. If they did manage to discover the true nature of her abnormal conduct, she failed to see how that would really be so bad. She was confident that she could take on every one of these powerless people alone. And she knew that there were several people in the room that would never leave her to face them by herself anyway. Bonnie might even encourage it to get herself the third necessary sacrifice.
She sensed Caroline move on her right move to take her hand before quickly withdrawing. It was almost as if she had forgotten that Elena did not care anymore. Elena did not see how she could be so ridiculous but then she noticed Caroline's expression. Her eyes were red and she was fidgeting. For the first time in the week since returning from the island, Elena realized that Caroline was going through a lot, too. She had lost her three constant pillars of support, Tyler, Elena, and Bonnie.
The tickling sensation was creeping upon her again though so she turned away.
"Jeremy possessed such talent and enthusiasm. He was artistic, kind hearted, and friendly to all who had the fortune to meet him. His passion touched all those around him."
Pastor Rhett Brown did not know Jeremy at all. He was just the poor sap that Bonnie's dad called in to replace the ill-fated Pastor Young. Elena found that funny since Mystic Falls' administration had never attempted to replace the sizable number of deceased before. But she supposed a pastor was useful to the community while people like Aimee Bradley and Ben McKittrick are easily forgotten and not even worth the effort it would take to find a substitute for them.
She supposed that most of the people in the room thought the same of Jeremy. Not even worth the effort it would take to replace him. Not even worth it.
Worthless. Pointless. Forgotten. And gone.
The tickling sensation was no longer bothersome, it was overwhelming and consuming and she felt. But she did not want to feel, so she stopped thinking of such useless things anyway.
Damon was sitting to the left of her. She decided she would rather study him them listen to the pastor who does not even know what or who he is talking about.
Damon's features were gorgeous. He was the most striking person she had ever seen. But his face was drawn in such a way that belied to carefully constructed casualness he usually conducted himself in. Elena had always known that Damon cared more than he let on, cared more than he wanted to, and she knew he had cared about Jeremy. She hoped Jeremy had known, too. She liked to think he did.
And if something stirred within her that was not painful or angry or sad as she watched him, and if she chose not to ignore the feeling, then that was something she would never admit.
Caroline was elated when Stefan told her. He did not see why Little Miss Sunshine was getting her hopes up, Elena was not ready. If he had been optimistic before, the service had definitely relieved him of that stupidity.
He had been watching her carefully for fear that she would do something to indicate that she was behaving unnaturally, or worse, that the switch was malfunctioning.
He knew the drill. He spent decades without his humanity and assumed that it would always be gone unless he wanted it. He was wrong.
The switch was like a drug. You took it and felt better, repeated the action over and over again until it was routine. Then suddenly something rudely brings you out of your delusion. It stops feeling better, the drug refuses to work, and everything you have fought so hard returns with fury at being denied so long.
Anything can trigger the switch's crash. For him, it was a sixteen-year-old girl who had the audacity the heart to care enough to ask a stranger what he wanted in life. He fought the losing battle for months but it was a foregone conclusion from the second she opened her mouth.
She had started the service detached to such a degree that she started smiling but that had changed. He was not sure what caused it but one moment Elena was bored and the next she was rigid. Her breathing picked up subtly, her heartbeat accelerated slightly, and her muscles locked in place.
He was about to reach out to her as if that would help when she shifted to stare at him intently. The rest of the service passed and all she did was look at him. No more problems arose but Damon had seen enough to know.
"This is really for the best, she just needed this week as a vacation from everything. She will be sad of course but then we will fix this. I can make the spinach casserole I made when her parents died. It helped her a lot then and we can manage everything now. With lists and plans, we can do this."
"And afterwards we can scour the town for Hallmark cards that read 'I'm sorry your crazy slut of a doppelganger murdered your last family in cold blood' and 'my condolences that the family magical ring stopped working just in time to allow your brother to die.'"
"You're horrible! What is wrong with you?"
"You're right, we'll never find the perfect card from Hallmark. We should just write it ourselves."
"Damon, stop." He turned to look at his brother's pained face. Caroline eyes had begun to well up with tears but he could not bring himself to feel bad.
"You need to stop deluding yourselves. She's not ready and forcing it will only make it worse for everyone. What we need to be doing is focusing on the new mayor who is trying to remove the welcome matt from beneath our feet while his daughter, Sabrina the teenage witch, is on extended leave from the loony bin. Acting like children clinging to idealistic idiocy is not useful."
"You agreed to test it," Stefan was adamant, which means it would only result in a fight if he did not concede. Kicking Stefan's ass would greatly improve his mood. But with Elena's new temperament and the fact that one hundred percent of his friends were reclining six feet under a poorly marked gravestone, Damon knew isolating himself from Vampire Barbie and his brother could only end poorly.
And unless he wanted to start slumming it in terms of company with the likes of the Quarterback or Bonnie, who was behaving like McMurphy post-lobotomy in terms of useful contributions, he would give on this one.
It would be their own fault when their hopes shattered and maybe they would finally listen to him afterwards. Unlikely, he thought. But he could not destroy the desire to protect them and it caused him to want to stop what he knew was coming.
When Elena opened the door to the Salvatore boarding house and saw the three of them waiting for her in the parlor, she knew something was going on. Damon's back was facing her as he fixed himself a drink and while that was usually a good view, she could not enjoy it with Caroline and Stefan's expressions. Caroline was smiling hopefully and Stefan appeared to be eagerly watching her for something.
Immediately she turned to leave only to run right into Damon. "Hold on a second, Speedy Gonzales, where are you off to so quickly?" He was waggling his finger at her and wriggling his eyebrows but she could see through him. She always could. And he was tense, there was strain in the awkward way he was moving, which only told her to go now.
Without a word, she spun around but his hand shot out and clasped onto her upper arm. Yanked back, she fell flushed against him for a second, which caused the tension in his posture to become more pronounced. She remembered her plan from earlier that day but before she could consider acting on it, Stefan was speaking.
"Elena, we're going to try something." She froze. No, they wouldn't. She looked up waiting for Damon's refusal but he was studiously avoiding eye contact. His gaze was fixated on his brother.
She did not understand. This was not something he would agree to. He always valued results over ethics, why would that change now? Figures he would decide to become a celibate Good Samaritan when she wanted the depraved Casanova.
"Damon," Stefan called.
Damon's face had lost his smirk as he turned to her. His hand slid down from her upper arm to her hand to hold it in a secure grasp. She tried to shrug him off. She did not want his pity and comfort when he was rejecting her advances. And she certainly did not want it now when he was so fully betraying her.
"Elena," Damon began pained, "I know I said for you to turn it off, that it was okay." He did and now he was taking it back. Rage and a trickle of fear swelled within Elena. She had to get out, they could not do this to her. But Damon's grip was unyielding. "But I think now that you should turn it on."
There was a pause as everyone waited on something. Then Damon continued, "That would make me happy. It is what I want."
Elena remembered how the sire bond felt. Before she knew about it, she felt a tug to do certain things Damon said. And then her body complied and her brain would provide her reasons for why she had done it. After she discovered she had been sired, it was no longer unnoticeable. It was still subtle but now she knew the actions were not her own. She could feel the forced inclination to follow the order and she would be aware that it was not what she wanted.
"No, I won't." Right now she processed the order but felt no accompanying impulse to do as he said. There was nothing and she sure as hell was not going to listen to this any longer. "And you can't make me."
With that, she tore her hand from Damon's hold. He seemed more openly uncertain at the unfolding events.
"Elena-" Stefan began before she fixed him with glare that made him halt. She wanted him to feel her anger, her hatred. He deserved it. They all did. How dare they? She sneered at his wounded face. Hypocrite.
"No, screw you all of you. You two," she indicates with her hand towards Stefan and Damon, "Spent decades with your humanity off. You don't get to say I can't keep mine off.
"And you," reeling on Caroline, "Just because Tyler left you and Bonnie isn't there for you now doesn't mean you have any right to control my life for your selfish need for comfort."
"Elena, I'm just trying to help you!" Caroline protested.
"No, you're just trying to help Stefan. Isn't that all you do lately? Protect poor Stefan?" Stefan's face got even more pathetic if possible. Damon had recovered and was now looking at her in assessment.
"What? Elena, I have only been trying to help you!"
"Yeah, and when you betrayed my trust after I explicitly asked you to let me tell Stefan about Damon and me, when you promised me you would, that was for me, right? That was because you wanted to help me of course," Elena was getting incensed. She felt the freedom to say exactly what she thought. They could not stop her. If they were going to judge her, well, she did not need them then.
Caroline looked hurt but Elena did not care. And without even bothering to see Damon and Stefan's reactions, she blurred out the still open front door.
"Well, that went well. What's the Plan B, hero squad?"
"What just happened? What did you do, Damon? You agreed to try, why would you screw it up?" For once, Damon could tell that Caroline was not actually blaming him as she panicked. He could see Elena's words had gotten to her. For the first time, since she turned, Damon thought she looked small and fragile. She was wringing her hands obsessively as she watched Stefan pace back and forth in the room.
Damon threw her a smirk anyway to hide his own unease, "Don't look at me, Barbie. But shouldn't you be overjoyed? The oh-so-terrible sire bond seems to have vanished into thin air. Ta-da!" He gestured with one hand towards the front door Elena had just walked out of.
Stefan and Caroline did not even grace him with an irritated glance. And Damon was not inclined to keep the act up with no audience, so he approached the drink cart to pour himself another glass.
Truthfully, Damon was concerned. Without the sire bond, it was very likely that Elena would never want to turn her humanity back on. It would come back anyway even if she did not want it to, but what she if she just up and leaves before it does. What if she is miles away when it flicks on and she realizes that she has killed people, realizes that she is alone and just gives up. They cannot control a vampire without their humanity if the sire bond is out of play.
Stefan abruptly stopped pacing and turned to him. "Wait, Damon, her humanity is turned off."
"Really, I hadn't noticed."
"Which means she doesn't have her emotions right now."
"Oh, how astute brother. You missed your calling as Sherlock Holmes."
"But that's it!" Stefan seemed both excited and terrified at his realization. Damon shot a look at Caroline but she seemed just as lost as he was.
"Stefan," Caroline called hesitantly, "What's what?"
"When Damon and I left to investigate the sire bond, we went down to New Orleans where we met a witch. She told us the origin of vampire sire bonds."
"Okay…" Caroline said slowly but Damon had a sickening feeling he knew where Stefan was going.
"She said that vampire sire bonds only occur when the vampire sired has 'human feelings' for the vampire whose blood turned them."
At Caroline's dawning look of comprehension, Stefan finished, "I guess no feelings, no bond."
There was no reason Damon should feel like someone sucker punched him. But to hear and see the proof that Elena no longer cared for him hurt more than he would admit. He knew she likely did not really love him anyway but she had always cared for him on some level. Now, that was just gone. It was heartbreaking but Damon did not like to swell on heartbreak. It had never served him well before.
"So wait," Caroline looked up as she finally caught up to the implications of the situation, "How are we going to make her to turn her humanity back on then?"
"We're not going to make her do anything, we have to get her to want to turn it back on," Stefan admitted.
"Right because every eighteen year old recently turned vampire who has lost every family member she had would just kill for the chance to experience that magnified pain." He let the hopelessness of that plan sink in their idealistic brains.
"Yeah, I'll get right on that."
I hope I'm doing okay. I've elected to do shorter chapters initially with frequent updates to get the ball rolling and then proceed to chapters at least doubled this length more likely on a weekly basis when the real plot gets going. If you have any suggestions, comments, concerns, preferences, please hit me up in a review.