So. Here we are. This is the penultimate chapter; I'll add an epilogue in the next few days, but I want to go ahead and say my thank yous here so the last chapter can just be about Damon and Elena, not me.
When I threw up that little drabble back in January after that chaste kiss on the porch, I never imagined I'd still be writing about it five months and tens of thousands of words later. It only happened because of all of your kindness and encouragement. Special, undying gratitude goes out to WildYennifer and onerepublicgirl. Without your friendship, your intelligent debate, your encouragement, your cat photos and music suggestions, I never would have survived this. Thank you both. Additional thanks to jade2099, who may be the only person to have reviewed every single chapter of this monster, always with wonderful insight and kind words reassuring me that I didn't suck. Thank you.
There will not be a Season 4 continuation of this story, but I still have other tales to tell. If you enjoyed "Consumed," hit those author alerts so we can stay in touch. Hint: the next two pieces I have in mind are from Damon's point-of-view. Don't miss 'em.
Again, thank you. I have had so much fun with this silly story. I hope you did, too.
-Allison, 5/12/12
Elena didn't get to use the flamethrower. "As hot as you are with that thing, I don't want you accidentally barbequing anyone. Better leave it to the professionals," Damon said as he plucked the contraption from her hands.
"And you're a flamethrower pro-" She shook her head with a slim smile. "Nope. Never mind. Don't want to know. Happier that way. But how would it have helped anyway? He can't just burn up from normal fire...right?" Elena asked as they walked to where Jeremy, Caroline, and Stefan stood.
"Fire didn't put a dent in Elijah; believe me, I tried. But we don't know what will kill that thing. Someone put an arrow in Esther's jugular before she could finish her Bond villain speech," Damon said.
"Shut up, dick," Jeremy said. It was almost like a reflex now. Damon spoke, Jeremy told him to shut up. Elena hid a smile.
"Let's think about this," Stefan said. "What could kill Mikael? You said Esther specifically mentioned him. There has to be a reason for that. Presumably they have at least some of the same weaknesses."
"Mikael could be daggered, unlike Klaus," Elena said, trying to remember that awful night, the night Stefan had seemingly betrayed them all and run away, the night both she and Damon had to accept that the boy they loved was never coming back. Stefan never had come home, not really. Not the same man who had left Mystic Falls the spring before, anyway. Then again, Elena was no longer the girl who loved that boy, either. Things change. She wrenched her thoughts back to the present. "And the stake. Of course there's the stake."
"Surely Esther wouldn't be dumb enough to arm Alaric with the only thing that could kill him," Jeremy said.
"Some people really suck at plans," Damon reminded him. "But you're probably right. Esther wasn't stupid; she was playing the long game here. Which makes me suspicious that she'd just let another vampire wander around for all eternity. What's to stop that thing from just starting his own new race of vampires once we're all dead?"
"Well, he hates vampires, for one thing, so why would he want to do that to anyone else?" Caroline asked.
"Loneliness," Stefan said quietly. "Even if you despise what you are, being alone is far, far worse." His eyes were a million miles away, a hundred years away.
"And Esther would have known that from Klaus. She would have planned for it," Elena said. Esther, for all her faults and failings and insanity, had understood her children, had understood people. No one could live alone forever, and she had surely known that.
"She must've built in some kind of kill switch. Problem is, we don't know what. Damn, I wish we had a witch," Damon sighed. Elena flinched.
"Could we just do what we did with Klaus—vervain the crap out of him and stick him in the tomb? They can be really weird roommates," Caroline said. "Then if we ever figure out what the kill switch is, we switch it. And kill him."
"We can't put him in the same tomb; Esther spelled him in and again, no witch," Stefan said. For the thousandth time that day, Elena wished Bonnie were here. She'd figure out the kill switch, she'd know how to take down Alaric and end all this. But if she were here, Damon wouldn't be. And if she were here, she might just side with Alaric and decide that vampires were contrary to the balance of nature after all. But it was all pointless speculation. Bonnie wasn't here, and never would be again. That still hurt. "But we could dump him somewhere else. Bottom of the Atlantic, for instance," Stefan continued, shaking Elena from her reverie.
"I like where your head's at, brother," Damon said. He popped the trunk of his car, revealing a veritable arsenal of vampire hunting gear. Vervain grenades, more wooden stakes, flasks of pure vervain extract, row after row of crossbow bolts, an ax, coils of wire whose purpose Elena couldn't quite figure out. Elena was pretty sure there was even a curved sword in there, gleaming beside the spare tire. "Incapacitating him's the plan, but be on the lookout for anything that might let us put him down for good."
Elena's eyes drifted from face to face as they set to work swirling arrowheads in vervain, filling syringes, checking bowstrings. Caroline, her best friend. Jeremy, her brother. Stefan, her friend and brother. And Damon. Her Damon. This was the last battle. One way or another, it would end tonight. If things didn't go their way, if Alaric was faster than they'd thought, if they fell one by one? Well, at least they'd be together. And the party Ric and Jenna would have waiting on the other side would be legendary. She allowed herself a smile.
No matter what happened tonight, they'd be safe. No more Klaus to dog their steps, no more witches to upset the balance of their lives, no more looming extinction. No matter what happened, whether this night ended with celebration or mourning, they would just be friends and lovers and family again. One way or another, it ended tonight.
She started to say something, to tell them that she loved them all and was so lucky to have them here with her, to thank them for everything and tell them she loved them again. But that felt too much like goodbye. So she put her head down and prepared for battle.
The school was in flames. Every door, every bush and shrub, every blade of grass around the school was whipped into a towering holocaust. Every entrance except one. There they waited with vervain dripping from their arrows and filling their grenades; they waited with more fire and grim determination. As the last rays of sunlight faded into a dusky twilight blue, Alaric appeared in the mouth of their trap, watching them from the conflagration with an odd smirk. They hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, for old time's sake and old friendships and old blood. For a moment, they wavered. He didn't.
Caroline fell first, before she even had time to throw the vervain grenade she clutched in her hand. Didn't even get a chance to pull the pin before her neck was twisted into an impossible position and she collapsed to the ground like a discarded doll. Stefan scored a hit with his crossbow, the bolt sizzling into Ric's shoulder, filling the air with the smell of roasting, rotted meat. It didn't even slow the creature down and Stefan joined Caroline in a heap on the ground.
Elena's arrow went wild, flying harmlessly into the flames engulfing the school. Alaric batted Jeremy's bolt away like a fly. The siblings struggled to reload their weapons. Damon rushed him, a streak of black in the dusk. Alaric caught him in the chest with one firm blow, sending him flying back, impacting the ground so hard he left a tiny crater in the earth. Damon didn't move.
The thing with Ric's face grinned at them, eyes empty and wild. "It always comes down to the four of us, doesn't it? Comes down to this fucked up little family you tried to cobble together. We have Mommy and Daddy-" he gestured to Damon's prone body, then to himself, "-and the two little brats."
"Don't do this. Don't take them from me, too. Don't leave me all alone, Ric," Jeremy said. His eyes were pleading, his voice was soft, and his hands still fumbled with the crossbow. Alaric was in front of him in a flash, plucking the weapon from his hands and breaking it over his knee. Elena finally reloaded the crossbow, but she couldn't get a clear shot; Jeremy's back was in the way, and she didn't trust her aim enough to risk the shot. She'd have to find another way.
"Don't call me Ric," the thing said. "And don't defend them. Not one of them is innocent. You love what they used to be, not what they are. If you really loved them, you'd let them go." His face softened, and for a moment, he was the man Elena remembered, the guardian and uncle and father and whatever she'd loved. "Besides, you'll have me. You'll always have me, Jer."
Everything clicked. The way Alaric was trying to seduce Jeremy to his hatred, the way he was almost gentle and human with the boy. It all made sense. Everyone else was collateral damage to him, but not Jeremy. Jeremy's blood had completed his transition, but Alaric hadn't killed Jeremy, hadn't even drained enough to incapacitate him. Because he knew he needed Jeremy alive and safe. Because Jeremy was the kill switch. It made sense in the bizarre, twisted logic of witches. A life for a life, a death for a death. A human lifespan that would give Alaric enough time to complete his dirty work, but it would have a real and inevitable ending. It all made sense. It also meant Elena knew exactly what she had to do.
This time, Elena's arrow flew straight and true. It thudded into Jeremy's back. As one, he and Ric fell to the ground.
Elena cradled Jeremy in her lap, the flames from the school casting dark shadows across his face. He was so cold, so pale. She remembered another night spent holding his corpse in her arms and sobbing, waiting and praying that magic she didn't understand would bring him back to her. This was worse. Elena wasn't sure it would work this time. What if his ring had been tied to Ric's in some way and now was dormant and dead? What if the crossbow bolt didn't count as supernatural? Damn witches. Damn witches and their rules. Ric's body sat feet away, blood still drooling from his lips. It was hard to believe that he, too, wouldn't simply sit up, smile sheepishly and ask what he'd missed. But he wouldn't. Never would again. Unless...Elena's stomach clenched. If he and Jeremy were really tied together, would he come back too? She didn't know, and she couldn't think about that. None of it mattered anyway if Jeremy didn't wake up.
Sirens wailed as fire trucks screeched to the school. The firefighters started on the other side of the building, affording them privacy for the moment. But all that seemed so far away and useless right now.
How many more of her friends, of her family, would she have to kill? It had been bad enough when her friends died because of her, when Caroline had been turned to prove a point or Jenna had died because of her blood. But now, to have killed Bonnie and Jeremy and Ric with her own hands? That was infinitely worse. Even if Jeremy came back, it was worse.
One by one, the others awoke, first Damon, then Stefan, then Caroline. They sat together in the dark, huddled around the body of a child until magic reanimated him, brought him back to life gasping and confused but whole. Alaric's body remained motionless and cold.
The sun began to rise, chasing the shadows from the sky. As she hugged the confused and shaking Jeremy to her, as she sat surrounded by her loved ones, her vanquished enemy and friend beside them, she finally believed that the war had ended. It was over.
They buried Ric in the Gilbert plot the next day, another unmarked grave in the crowded patch of earth. Elena's arms were full of roses. One for Mom, one for Dad. One for Jenna, one for John, one for Ric, the blood red petals bright against the green, green grass. There was still one rose left in her hand. Caroline cried into Tyler's shoulder. Matt stared at his shoes. Jeremy rubbed at his eyes. Stefan watched. Damon left a bottle of bourbon sitting on the gentle swell of sod.
"Should we say something?" Caroline managed through her tears. "Like, should I compel a minister or something?"
"Already said it all," Damon said. "He's not here, anyway. None of them are." He glanced at Jeremy, arching a quizzical brow. "Right?"
Jeremy shrugged. "If they are, I don't see them. Doesn't mean they aren't watching, though."
"Funerals get really weird when you start seeing ghosts," Matt sighed. "So I'm kinda glad they're not here."
Elena thought she was glad, too. As comforting as it was to know that all those who had gone before her, the long list of people she'd loved and lost, could look in on her from time to time, she wanted, needed to believe they were at peace and happy on the other side, not looking back with longing at what they could no longer have.
In ones and twos, they said their goodbyes and drifted away until only Damon and Elena remained, murmuring vague promises to meet the others at the Grill to raise a glass in Ric's honor. The two walked down the hill and over the creek to the willow tree. Elena lay her final rose in the grass. She didn't deserve to leave it; didn't deserve to remember or mourn Bonnie. But she needed to. "I'm sorry," she said, just in case Bonnie might be peeking in. It was inadequate, but it was all she had.
"Are you sorry about all of it?" Damon stared hard at the ragged edges of the sod that were the only indication of Bonnie's final resting place. Soon, it would grow back together and the earth would swallow her as if she'd never existed at all. "If you'd chosen differently, she'd be alive. Hell, you'd be alive. Maybe Ric, too. Somehow."
Elena didn't answer right away. Ever since that night she'd kissed Damon on the porch, since the night in the boarding house where they'd agreed to give it a go and see where love got them, life had been hard. The choice of being with Damon had made everything a thousand times more difficult. It had caused death and anguish and despair for both of them, to say nothing of those around them. There were a thousand things she would go back and change if she could, a hundred decisions she'd make differently. Elena had died for him and killed for him, and that had been hard enough. But living for him, living with him now and forever? That was the real challenge. He was stubborn and brutal; he was controlling and vicious. He demanded every ounce of her, accepted nothing less than her entire soul every second of every day. But she wouldn't have changed any of that for the moon and stars.
Stroking his face, she smiled. It was still a difficult gesture, still something she didn't feel she deserved. "I miss them. I'll always miss them. But Damon, I will always choose you." In the weeping arms of the willow, they kissed, something sweet and sad and older than time passing between them.
They meandered through the headstones in companionable silence with no real destination. They had all the time in the world, after all. And then some. "What happens now?" Elena asked. The fighting was over, and as glad as she was, its ending left a gnawing emptiness inside her. For so long, her every thought had been preoccupied with survival, battle plans, strategies for outsmarting their enemies. Now, she wasn't sure what happened. Go back to school, try to live a normal undead life? Try to raise Jeremy, try to be a good friend to the few loved ones she had left? The normalcy of it all was terrifying. How did she go back to that life after what she'd seen, what she'd done? How did they move past all these graves?
"Now? Now comes the fun part, Elena." He wrapped his arm around her waist, tugging her close. "Now we get to live."