Thanks to Nymphadora for helping me immensely with this chapter. You should thank her, too, since she talked me out of a really lousy idea. Thank her by reading one of her amazing stories—my favorite is "Ghosts of Christmas," but they're all great. And as a reminder, no chapter on Thursday, but I'll be back again on Friday. Promise.
"Why are you still talking about this? We're not going," Damon said as he parked in front of Caroline's house.
"We can't not go, Damon," Elena said for the thousandth time. They hadn't stopped bickering since they'd read the invitation. As usual, Damon's first response was to get the hell out of town (He was pushing Italy this time. "C'mon, you'd love Milan: Fashion, old shit, and all the pizza you can eat," he'd coaxed), but they both knew that wasn't an option. "What do you think is gonna happen if we say no? Klaus just shrugs and orders a couple fewer canapes? Or Klaus takes it personally and decides to remove your spine?"
"I can't believe he's able to do anything. They were killing him, Elena," Damon said.
"No, they were hurting him. He can't be killed," Elena said wearily. The invitation finally cleared up the mystery of the coffin. His mother, of all people. How that was even possible when she wasn't a vampire, Elena didn't know. But apparently she had the whole family singing "Kumbaya," and Klaus was so happy to have the whole Original family back together, he had to throw a ball to celebrate.
"That family manages to screw up everything," Damon said. "I mean, couldn't they have thrown him in a volcano or something? Let's see him survive that."
Elena rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you can complain about someone else's family without irony." She climbed out of the car, lasagna in hand. "I'm going. Whether you want to go or not is your business. But we have to know what's going on. Maybe the other brothers and the mom can be allies. We won't know if we don't go," Elena said as she started up the walk.
Damon fell into step beside her. "Elena, if this is all just an elaborate ploy to get me into a tux, all you had to do was ask," he started to tease, but gave up, face turning serious. "I don't trust them around you," he said.
"I trust them even less around you," Elena said. "They aren't going to kill me, so let's not have that argument again. We can't just sit in the dark and hope they just magically go away. They aren't going to."
Damon sighed. "Fine, but I'm bringing backup."
"I don't think it's a good idea to bring Ric as your backup," Elena said.
"Hardly. He can barely see straight anymore. We'll bring the only person I trust to have my back." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Stefan."
"That isn't funny, Damon," she said.
"It really, really isn't," he said unhappily. "But you said it yourself: The person who's really at risk at this shindig isn't you at all. It's me. And the one thing Stefan has proven, time and time again, is that he won't let me die. No matter how badly I deserve it or how badly it fucks up our master plan. So we'll count on him to play to type."
Elena didn't like any part of that plan. She didn't know that she'd ever be able to forgive Stefan for what he'd done on the bridge, for making her relive that terrible night, for using her screams to fuel his insane revenge, for his cold callousness as he'd told her Damon wasn't worth dying for. She didn't trust him to have her back anymore, that was for damn sure. But Damon was right. This wasn't about her. She wasn't the one who needed to be protected from Klaus. "Since when do you care if you're at risk?" she asked.
"Since I found something worth living for," he said. He waited a beat to let his words sink in. "Besides, the invitation said there'd be dancing. You know how I feel about dancing," he said with a smirk.
Elena grinned, and the front door creaked open. Caroline stood there, face pale and streaked with tears. A piece of thick, creamy paper was crumpled in her hands. "So you got one, too?" she asked in a trembling voice. Then she burst into tears.
They sat at the kitchen table for hours. Caroline ate plate after plate of lasagna; Elena mostly just listened. Caroline told her of Bill's final hours, how she wanted so badly to save him, but he'd just smiled and told her that wasn't the way of the world, that parents shouldn't outlive their children. How he'd told her how proud he was of her, even after she'd become what he hated most. How she'd held his hand as he died. How she missed him already, how she hated him for not living, for not staying with her, but how she knew he wouldn't have been happy as a vampire. Elena murmured words of comfort. Even Damon managed to look sympathetic, though he slipped out of the room as soon as he could to talk to Liz. Elena knew all the emotion bothered him, but Caroline needed her now.
"And now I have to go to thisball because of Klaus' stupid Cinderella fetish," Caroline said, pushing her empty plate away.
"You don't have to go," Elena said. "I mean, he barely knows you."
Caroline toyed with her fork. "Um. We did kind of talk. A little. The night he cured me, after Tyler bit me."
Elena's eyebrows raised in surprise. "What did you talk to Klaus about?"
"You know, just stuff. My birthday. What it means to live forever. All the things I could do and see and have, if I wanted," Caroline said awkwardly, not meeting her friend's gaze.
"Caroline, are you blushing? About Klaus?" Elena said. But now that she thought about it, Damon had mentioned how excited she'd been after her recovery from the bite, how she'd been talking about college and studying in Paris. Elena hadn't thought much of it at the time, thought that maybe their funeral had had its desired effect, but...
"No! It's just...he was really nice to me. I know, I know, Elena. It's totally screwed up. But he made me see things differently. He made me see all the good things about being seventeen forever, not just the awful filler year stuff," she said. "And I'm going to the ball." She wiped her eyes determinedly, and Elena didn't bother to argue about how insane everything she'd just said was. Once Caroline made up her mind, it was a done deal. And maybe a little distraction wouldn't be so bad for her right now. "What are you going to wear? We don't have much time to decide. I was thinking, for you—curls."
Elena knew from the first moment that it was a dream. She remembered coming back from Caroline's late, she remembered sleep-walking her way through homework before falling into bed. She knew she was sound asleep, safe in her room while Ric and Damon chatted in the living room below. But that didn't make any of it less real. She was lost in a maze of black curtains, tearing her way through the fabric, lost and disoriented. But there were voices.
"It's always been you. You know that, don't you?" Damon panted. "Always. I've been waiting my whole life for you to choose me."
"I love you, Damon. This Damon, not that weak little fop you used to be. But now you're ready," Katherine breathed. "Now you deserve me." She laughed, that high, kittenish trill.
Elena tore through another curtain, expecting to find only more of that endless maze, but she stumbled upon a huge bed, hung in black. Katherine straddled Damon, both of them naked and beautiful. They turned to her with eyes full of blood.
"Ahh, there she is. My little shadow," Katherine laughed. "Did you really think you could replace me with her?"
"Never. But she was the closest I could get to you," Damon said, gazing up at Katherine with worshipful eyes.
"Elena, you have to let him go. We have to let him go," a new voice said from behind her. Elena whirled, and Stefan was there. Not the Stefan who laughed as she screamed, not the Stefan who told her Jeremy's life wasn't his problem, but the gentle boy who'd told her she wouldn't be sad forever, who took her in his arms and made the whole world disappear.
"But I love him," Elena said.
"And that's the saddest part of all," Damon mocked. She turned, and he was there, close and ferocious and feral, every inch the dark god. "That you thought that I would ever love someone like you. You're a child, Elena, a pathetic little nothing. But you reminded me of the one thing I really love." He stroked her hair as he loved to do, long fingers tangling in the strands. "But in the end, you were just something to do, Elena. Now that I have what I really want, there's no need to play this game any more." His hand tightened around her hair and he jerked her head down brutally. She caught a flash of wicked, curved fangs.
There was no time to cry, no time to scream or run. The pain was searing as he tore into her shoulder, ripping her flesh at the heart of the healing X she'd carved into her own body, sapping her blood and her strength and her will away with every pulse of her heart.
Katherine's laughter was still ringing in her ears when Elena awoke, screaming.