All right, I'm more nervous to put this chapter up than any other I've done before. I hope it makes sense; I hope it comes out all right. Thanks to onerepublicgirl and Charlotte Silverthorne for helping me work through some of my issues.
And to answer a question I've been getting a lot: This story will end with the season. We'll keep on trucking right through the last moment of "The Departed" and see where it leaves all our characters. Thanks for sticking around this long-hang with me 'til the bitter end.
Over and over again, Elena assured herself that this day couldn't get any worse. But each new bombshell reminded her that life could always, always get worse.
She wasn't sure how long she'd stood at the door, straining to move beyond the confines of the house while praying not to. Her cell phone became her lifeline as she dialed the same four numbers in an endless loop.
"You've reached the voicemail of Alaric Saltzman. To schedule a parent-teacher conference, please call 804-555-5916. Otherwise, please leave a message and I'll respond as soon as I can."
"Hi! It's Caroline!" The message broke up into giggles. "Bonnie, stop it! Um, anyway! Leave me a message and I'll hit ya back!"
A robotic female voice. "You've reached the voicemail of-" "Stefan Salvatore," a familiar voice broke in. The robot continued. "To leave a callback number, press one, or leave a message at the tone."
"You know what to do," Damon's voice purred.
Why did they have phones if no one ever answered the damn things? Elena was ready to throw her phone against the wall when it vibrated. She nearly dropped it, but managed to catch it before it fell outside and out of her reach. But the name on the caller ID was unexpected. She raised the phone to her ear.
"Bonnie?" There were so many things she wanted to say, wanted to ask. To thank her for saving Alaric, to ask if she was okay, if Abby was okay, if they were okay. But she didn't. She waited.
The voice on the other end of the line was hollow, as if the last traces of life had drained away, leaving only a husk. "I have two things to tell you. The first is that the Originals are unlinked. The second is that Rebekah has Stefan." The line went dead.
What followed next was a flurry of confusion and panic. "911. It's Stefan," Elena texted to Damon. Her phone buzzed back almost immediately. "I know. We're working on it. You can yell at me soon. Love you."
Less than an hour later, Damon was helping his brother inside. Stefan was covered in blood, his shirt in tatters and his bare chest covered in trickles and smears of blood. His wrists were caked heavily in gore, thick ropes of scabs still encircling his arms, his healing abilities stretched to the max. The Originals elevated torture to an art form; she supposed she should be grateful there were no intestines showing this time.
She'd been ready for them. Stefan accepted the blood bags she offered him without a word, pulling from his brother's grasp and disappearing upstairs. The pair watched him go, waited until the door shut behind him before they turned to each other. "Can we just save the yelling for tomorrow?" Damon asked wearily. "It's been a fucking long day and I'll still be a dick tomorrow."
Elena nearly bowled him over as she flung heself into his arms. "You asshole," she said between kisses. "Don't you ever scare me like that again."
Damon staggered under her onslaught, but recovered, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Scare you? You're mad because I scared you?"
More bruising kisses. "Among other things."
"I'll take it," Damon said, returning her kisses with equal ardor. But suddenly he pulled back, frowning. "Um. Elena? Are you aware there are two dead bodies bleeding out on my Persian rug?"
Honestly? She'd nearly forgotten. They were dead and unlamented and there were so many bigger problems like the Originals and Stefan and reassuring herself that Damon was alive and well and whole. "I tried to tell you. I tried to call you a million times," she said.
"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning," Damon said.
"You first," Elena insisted.
A glass of bourbon in one hand a blood bag in the other, Damon told her the story. How they'd cut the sign into twelve stakes. How Stefan had disappeared somewhere between the loft and the Grill. How they'd found that Finn was in town and ambushed him. How Caroline had wounded the eldest Original with a crossbow bolt before Matt finished him off with a stake. How he'd burst into flames as Sage screamed.
They'd discovered Rebekah had been holding Stefan captive at the mansion. "They've been sleeping together," Damon said reluctantly, as if afraid the words might hurt her. "Ever since the night she kidnapped him. Some kind of weird Stockholm shit; I don't know. Inevitably, he did something to piss her off—he still won't tell me the whole story—and she took it out on him. Was trying to bleed the vervain from his system."
Damon explained how he'd come to trade eight of the stakes for Stefan's freedom; how Klaus had compelled Stefan to try to rip himself from the bonds that held him ("Seriously, she used bear traps. How fucked up is that?" Damon sounded more than a little impressed at Rebekah's ingenuity), had forced him to reveal that they hadn't given all the stakes back. How they'd been let go with strict orders to return the remaining stakes. How Ric's alter ego had hidden one. How they didn't know what they were going to do now.
It was a lot to take in. Dimly, she was aware that she probably should be upset that Stefan had been sleeping with someone else—and not justanyone else, but Rebekah, that noxious, murderous bitch. Maybe she'd care when there were fewer life-or-death matters on the table, but mostly Elena was concerned about Stefan's judgment rather than offended because he'd moved on. She had. So should he.
"We'll find the stake. We'll find a way. We always do," she reassured him.
"We'll figure something out," Damon agreed. "How did you kill Sage? I know the training's been going well, but fuck, Elena, I'd be hard pressed to kill Sage-"
"I didn't kill her. She just...died. They both did."
"What do you mean? Vampires don't 'just die.' That's kind of the point of being a vampire," Damon said as he threw the empty blood bag on the coffee table.
"She did. And so did that Trent guy. Whoever he was," Elena said with a frown.
Damon was suddenly very still. "When did this happen, Elena? When did she get here?"
Elena strained to remember. "I don't know; maybe about ten? After Finn died—when did he die?"
There was no answer. His hand sought hers, clutching it tightly. "Damon," she prompted. "Tell me."
"Finn turned Sage. Sage turned Trent," he said slowly.
In a flash, she understood. She wished she didn't. "The bloodline. When Finn died, it took out his entire bloodline."
"And there's still one stake out there that could destroy another bloodline." Damon didn't need to explain that it could very easily be his bloodline. Damon. Stefan. Caroline. Gone in a single moment.
That wasn't going to happen. They could figure this out. "We'll find it. We'll find it and make sure-" she didn't know what they'd make sure. Make sure they were safe, she guessed. Elena struggled to keep the complex vampiric genealogies straight in her mind. "Katherine turned you and Stefan, and you turned Caroline, technically, I guess, since it was your blood. Who turned Katherine?"
"Rose," Damon said softly.
"Who turned Rose?"
Damon just shook his head, eyes downcast. "Look at me, Damon." Clouded blue eyes met hers, filled with an emotion she'd never seen there before. Fear. It wasn't that Damon hadn't faced death before. But Elena understood. Now he had something to lose. They both did. "We're going to find a way. We always do. We'll find the stake, we'll trace the bloodline, we'll keep you all safe."
Damon mustered a smile, but it was pale and wan. "Turns out being a human was safer, after all."
"Shut up," she said. "Just shut up." She kissed him, and he kissed her back. They made their way up the stairs, and made love as if for the last time.
Creepy or not, Elena watched him sleep. How could she not? At any moment, blood might spew from his lips, skin turning to ashes, eyes fixed and wide and dark. It wasn't fair; it wasn't right. Damon had spent a century alone, a century of misery and searching and longing, and now, when he'd found what he wanted, gotten what he deserved, everything could end before they could build a life together. It wasn't fair that he could leave her alone, spending the last of her handful of mortal years remembering what she'd lost, wondering what might have been.
Elena eased out of Damon's arms. He stirred unhappily, reaching for her. Elena pressed a kiss to his brow. "Just going to take a bath. Go back to sleep." He murmured something she couldn't make out and burrowed more deeply under the covers. She picked up her purse from the nightstand and made her way to the bathroom. Locked the door behind her.
A strange sense of calm settled over her as she turned the water on, as hot as it could go. She caught a glimpse of her naked body in the mirror, of the faint X that marked her shoulder, marked her as Elena Gilbert, marked her as human. It was faded, its healing hastened by vampire blood, but it was still there, a symbol to cling to. Her fingers ghosted across the ropy scar tissue.
It didn't take long to find the straight razor again. The light glinted across its silver blade. She set it aside and dug through her purse for paper and pen. "You jump, I jump," she wrote in neat cursive. "I love you. See you soon. Elena."
The note left on the vanity, Elena picked up the razor and climbed into the tub, hissing as the hot water scorched her skin. Holding her wrists up to the light, Elena's eye traced the map of tiny blue veins. How could so much be contained in those tiny vessels? Gilbert blood. Petrova blood. Salvatore blood. And somewhere, hidden deep inside, the blood of an Original. Blood that would bind her fate forever to Damon and the rest of the vampire species.
A flick of the wrist opened the straight razor, its blade clouded with steam. This wouldn't solve any problems; she knew that. Two quick cuts would slam a hundred doors closed and open a thousand more. Yes, she'd be strong, fast, eternal. Yes, she'd no longer be the doppelganger. Yes, maybe her friends would be safe from the dangers she brought. But those same friends might never forgive her or understand. Caroline's life had been torn from her—how could she accept that Elena threw hers away with both hands? How would Alaric and Jeremy understand that their love, their broken little family, wasn't enough? How would Stefan react when he learned she'd done this for Damon, when she'd never even considered it for him? Bonnie...Nothing she did would be good enough for Bonnie. She knew that now.
Elena loved them all, but this decision wasn't about any of them. It was about making an informed choice, a decision that would cause unbearable pain, present nearly insurmountable obstacles, and give her exactly what she wanted: A life with Damon, as long as they both survived. It might be a few hours; it might be a thousand years. But it would be together.
Then there was Klaus. Always her decisions now included that fucking hybrid. Klaus would almost certainly try to kill them both in revenge. She was the last doppelganger, after all. When she died, childless, she would be condemning Klaus to walk the world forever alone. He deserved it. But was death at his hands any better than condemning her offspring to become his wards, his blood bags? She could never do that to a child. Let the consequences come. They'd face them together.
She hadn't wanted it to be like this, hiding from Damon, slipping into death alone, no last chance to savor her humanity. But she knew there was no other choice. He would never turn her. Not now. Not with those risks. But this wasn't a decision made from fear. She loved him enough to tether their fates together, forever and always. However long forever was.
The razor clutched in her left hand, she held her wrist beneath the surface. This was it. There was no turning back; no do-overs, no spells would help her if she regretted this choice. Could she do it? Would she still be herself, or would she give in to the dark temptations she knew awaited her on the other side? She caught sight of herself in the mirror, the scar standing out in stark relief to her olive skin. She was Elena Gilbert. She'd get through this. With his help, she'd find a way to survive.
The hot water dulled the pain, but she still stifled a cry as the razor parted her skin, tore through veins and arteries and tendons. Tendrils of blood curled in the water, beautiful and ethereal. She watched, fascinated, before she remembered the job was not done. She struggled to hold the blade in nerveless fingers, but managed a ragged, deep cut in her left wrist. Blood bloomed like roses in the water.
She sank back against the tub, gasping faintly. There was so much blood. How could she have so much blood? Petrova. Gilbert. Salvatore. So much. She couldn't contain it all, it leaked away, pulsing in time to the beat of her heart, at first frantic with fear, but then ever more slowly. Even the pain faded as her heart gave shallow, erratic beats.
The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters. Damon. She tried to smile at him, to tell him that everything was going to be all right, but the muscles in her face wouldn't cooperate. He was pulling her out of the water, and he was saying something, yelling something, crying something, but her ears were ringing and she couldn't hear him. It didn't matter, anyway. It was done. He'd forgive her. He had to.
The world was dim, as if a veil had been thrown over her eyes. Damon was speaking again, his voice pleading. She smelled his blood, sharp and ferrous, before his wrist was slammed against her mouth. Her lips struggled to open, to accept this last gift, but she couldn't. It didn't matter, anyway. All that mattered was that his eyes, blue and glowing with panic and loss and love, were the last things she saw before the veil grew ever darker, and the world disappeared.