To fit in better with my timeline, I've moved Scary Mary's house of horrors from Kansas to Kentucky. Prevents unnecessary backtracking, and we don't want to put more miles on Damon's Camaro than we have to, do we? Please enjoy, and I'll see you all after the new episode. Can't believe we're at 3x20 already.
Grief and regret stabbed at her like a dull blade. Elena cried for Bonnie, remembering her as the laughing girl and not the cold and vengeful sorceress. She wept for Jeremy, the boy who had been torn from those he loved time and time again, the boy she had to drag back into a nightmare. And she shed a few tears for herself, for the choices she'd made and the blood she'd spilled. Damon held her, his cheek pressed to her crown. There would come a time for words, a time for apologies and I-love-yous; a time for hard questions and painful answers. But here and now, words were meaningless. All she needed was to let sorrow and love wash over her in alternating waves, to let Damon hold her close and convince himself she was back—battered around the edges, fractured at the seams, but whole again.
"Hey, thanks for leaving me alone in there, assholes. It's not like an Original is trying to kill us or anything—whoa." Jeremy skidded around the corner, petering to a stop a few yards away.
Elena buried her face against Damon a moment longer, willing the curtain of tears to part so she could somehow face her brother. Jeremy finding them like this was somehow more intimate than if he'd caught them in some passionate embrace. A deep breath. Another. Damon released her from his grip, one arm still curled around her waist, strong and steady. Tears still spilled over the rims of her eyes as she faced Jeremy. She made no attempt to wipe them away.
"Elena?" he asked uncertainly. Pillow lines creased his cheek and his hair stuck up in gravity-defying cowlicks.
"Yeah, Jer. It's me." Elena wasn't sure what she'd expected to happen then; maybe some cathartic, teary-eyed embrace full of forgiveness and a promise that they'd put the past behind them and look to the future. That didn't happen. Jeremy just stared at her, stared through her, like he'd stared at the place Rose had been.
"Welcome back, Elena." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, scuffing a bare foot on the ground. He almost seemed shy, as if greeting a long-estranged relation after an absence of years. But there was a little curve to his lips. "Missed you."
"So did I," she said, mustering her own thin smile for a fraction of a second before it collapsed. "I'm so sorry—about sending you away, about Bonnie." The name stuck in her throat like a bone. "About everything."
"Yeah. I know." He looked away, eyes hard. "There'll be time for all that later. Rose came back; Mary Porter's in Kentucky," Jeremy said.
"Perfect. Reunion's done, it's time for a little Hoarders: Vampire Edition." Damon started toward the motel room, towing Elena with him. "Saddle up—it's a long way to Kentucky."
"Can I drive?" Jeremy asked.
"It's good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor," Damon said. "That's important when you're in life-and-death situations. Besides, the last time I let someone else drive my car, I was picking gravel out of the undercarriage for days." He shot a pointed glance at Elena.
"It wasn't that bad—I was only a little off the road," Elena reminded him as the group ambled back to the motel room.
"Tell that to my poor Camilla," Damon said. "She'll never be the same."
"You named your Camaro 'Camilla'?" Jeremy asked, choking on a laugh.
"Shut it, Gilbert. Go get your shit together," Damon ordered. Jeremy grumbled, but disappeared into the room. Elena moved to follow him, but Damon caught her arm, pressing her against the grimy wall. He bent his head, dark hair falling before his eyes, lips hovering above hers. "You're kind of a bitch when your switch is off, you know that?" he murmured.
Another smile tried to break its way free. It was hard to smile; felt wrong, felt like a betrayal. But she had to try. "And you're a raging asshole when yours is off. What's your point?"
"No point; I just missed the shit out of you." He kissed her with ravenous hunger. "You're okay now," he said, his hand sliding up her arm, clasping her bicep. "You're okay." There was a tremor in his voice; he needed to believe the words, needed them to be true.
"I will be," she said. Not yet. "Okay" was still a ways off. But she was alive, awake, and moving forward. That was progress, and she'd take it. "For now, let's go find Mary. What was that you said about Hoarders?"
"I hope when you two shacked up it was at your place," Jeremy said as they picked their way through the piles of moldering books and hideous knickknacks, the blue light from Elena's cellphone illuminating odd botanical prints and what appeared to be taxidermied animals.
Elena had been adamantly opposed to Jeremy accompanying them into the weird old Victorian mansion, but Jeremy argued that he was safer between two vampires than he was sitting alone in the car. He had a point—he'd be long dead before they could reach him, even with super speed. Damon armed him with a crossbow from the trunk and told him not to put his eye out.
"A lot of freaky things seemed like good ideas in the '60s," Damon said, arms folded across his chest as he did his best to avoid touching the dirty, dusty mess that surrounded them.
"Eighteen or nineteen?" Elena asked.
"Nineteen, smart ass. Mary was-" A sharp crack from deep within the house had both vampires straining into the shadows. Nothing. Jeremy followed their gaze a second later. He was so slow—had she been that slow once? Didn't matter. They should have left him in the car.
"Stay here, Jer," Elena said as she and Damon moved as one toward the source of the noise. "No arguing."
Jeremy didn't argue; he just followed anyway. There wasn't time to fight. As Damon eased the door open, Elena caught blood in the stale air, like iron filings mixed with burnt cinnamon. Vampire blood. So she wasn't overly surprised to see the corpse pinned to the crumbling plaster, a sunburst of blood marring her white nightgown. She was considerably more surprised the vampire was staked to the wall with the shattered remains of a baseball bat.
"Poor Mary," a voice drawled. Elena whirled just as the lights flicked on. Kol sat in the corner, an aluminum bat slung over his shoulder. "I did so like her. But then, so did all my brothers. Except Finn; he never liked anyone, save for that nasty, common Sage. But Rebekah—she had a rather soft spot for old Mary, too." The slight man—little more than a boy, really- stood on tiptoe, stroking Mary's withered face. Elena's skin crawled. "Ah, well. All things must end in their season. Like the quest for your bloodline."
They knew. Somehow, Klaus—and by extension, Kol—knew about the bloodlines. They'd lost the upper hand. Fuck. If only they hadn't wasted so much time, maybe they could have beaten Kol here, saved Mary. But there was still Rose. If Rose could find Mary on the other side, they might still get the answers they needed.
"Sorry you came all this way for nothing, chums. But it does mean we can finish what we began back in Denver," Kol said. He tapped the sides of his shoes with the bat, knocking imaginary dirt away. There was the hollow ring of metal striking something solid, a tinkling explosion of bone, and Damon lay flat on the ground, moaning. So that's what separated an Original from the rest of the vampire race. Fast as Elena was now, she hadn't even seen him move. Kol continued with surgical strikes—a sweeping blow that dislocated Damon's shoulder, a punishing smash to the ribs.
The blows continued to rain upon Damon, but Elena couldn't move. It was happening again; it was all happening again. It wasn't Kol at all; it was a tiny witch, her hand outstretched, flames drifting through the darkness to that prone, still body. This was her second chance. There had to be a way this time, a way to save him and to save her, a way to avert all the pain, a way to bring Bonnie back. This time she could fix it, she could make it right. Had to be a way, had to be a way-
A crossbow bolt quivered in the wall beside Kol's head, blasting Elena from the past. This was not the boarding house; this was not Bonnie. Elena couldn't fall apart, not now, not when Damon and Jeremy both needed her. Jeremy. He stood with his crossbow still held aloft, defiance burning in his eyes as he stared down his former friend.
"Kol, you don't have to do this. They aren't going to hurt you. I know you're not a bad guy-"
"You poor, lonely boy. You're so desperate for a friend you'd even believe that I'm 'not a bad guy.'" A grin twisted across Kol's face as he stepped across Damon's writhing body toward Jeremy, the bat dropping from his hands. Jeremy struggled to fit another bolt into the crossbow, but his hands trembled and he dropped the quarrel. The Original pinned him into the corner. "Every moment I had to listen to your pathetic angst was purest agony, Jer." The fond nickname turned taunt in his mouth. "I wanted so badly to end it all, to stop the whining, but you were needed. Leverage. But I suppose there's no need for that anymore, is there?"
Jeremy tried to inch away, to search for an escape, but there was nowhere to go and Kol was reaching for his throat with that mad glint in his eye. Before Elena could think, could really decide to move, the bat was in her hands and she swung toward Kol's head with all her might, blood pressing on her eyes as rage devoured her and the veins squirmed under her skin.
Kol caught the bat in one hand, not even bothering to glance at his assailant. Elena tried to wrench the bat away, but it may as well have been stuck in cement. "Nice try, Salvatore-" he caught sight of Elena's face and froze.
The bat fell to the floor with a reverberating clang as Elena clutched at her face, the vampiric mask evaporating as suddenly as it had appeared, retreating in the face of this dominant vampire, this terrible threat.
Kol laughed. "Oh dear, oh dear. Look at the little doppelvamp." He stepped away from the cowering Jeremy, eyes dancing with humor. "As much as I'd love to stake you for your impertinence, it will be ever so much more fun to watch Niklaus tear his heart out-" he nodded to Damon, who had managed to struggle to his feet, arm dangling at an unnatural angle "-and feed it to you, just before he severs your head from that pretty neck." Still chuckling, Kol moved for the door, pausing at the threshold. "Do please drive safely back to Mystic Falls, won't you?" He disappeared in another fall of cold laughter.
They were all dead.