Rape Chapter 5

By Ivycat

Elena stayed in her bed, not caring to bring on another episode. She had not been there long when Bonnie came into her room.

"Elena! Where've you been? What happened? Damon texted a SOS but didn't say what was goin' on." She sat on the bed, "you don't look so good, got a cold or something? Elena rolled her neck, "Yeah, I thing I've got the flu. And the Asthma attack didn't help either." Her voice was stuffy from the congestion

"Ouch" Bonnie replied, "that's no good, I didn't know you still had problems with that now."

"So what happened? Where were you, why'd you just run off like that?"

Elena took a breath, then looked up and met the eyes of her friend. "I don't know Bonnie, I just don't know. I did not run off though. Damon said that I disappeared for a day, and I'm missing a day, but how do I find out what happened in those missing hours? Where was I? What happened? Who did it? So many questions, Bonnie, and never any answers to them.

And I hurt all over; I feel like I am dying, I jus' wanna sleep." Elena looked at Bonnie pitifully, her eyes ringed and dark.

"I know," Bonnie put her arm around her. "You just rest and I'll be here, I've got Grams book with me, maybe I can find something to help you feel better, or even reverse the amnesia."

Elena nodded and once more slid into her bed, and Bonnie sat in the chair lost deep in the book. The sunlight stretched and grew more golden as it entered the room, Elena was sleeping fitfully, Bonnie was lost in the pages of spells from times past.

Damon had gotten the inhaler with no problems of course. He went directly to Elena's house to deliver it.

He did briefly think of going to see Stefan, but decided that he did not want to leave Elena alone as long as he could help it. True Bonnie was with her, but at best she was only 'semi-competent' not that he intended for her to find out that he thought of her as that. As she had pointed out very effectively, she was capable enough to take him down whenever she had the whim. No, better to stay on her good side, if she even had one for vampires, which was questionable.

He noticed that Jenna was not at home yet, that would make his coming even easier. He could use easy after the past few days.

It had not escaped him that almost as soon as he had given his word to Stefan to keep Elena safe she had disappeared.

It made him furious. First that he had been almost forced to pledge his word to keep her safe. Curse him! Stefan knew that Elena was the one person that he, Damon, would die to protect. And second, that no sooner than he gave his word to keep her safe she disappeared, making his promise as empty and hollow as his soul.

Elena was really a trying individual. She was moping, self-absorbed and inclined to melodramatic out bursts. Not to mention she was completely wrong in her choice of brothers. There was cool, handsome, debonair and charming, then there was, well, Stefan. The only thing there was to recommend Stefan was that he too was moping, and he had the whole, 'Holier-than-thou' thing down to a 'T'.

But enough of this, the problem at hand was of the time Elena had been missing. Just exactly what had happened to Elena during the time she was missing? Who had taken her? Why? It could be a consequence of her deliberately exposing herself to the underworld as a Petrova Doppelganger. Stupid, stupid CHILD! She had no idea the danger that she had put herself in by announcing herself. Sure, the silly thing probably did feel as if that she knew all about the underworld since she had dated a vampire and been exposed to certain elements of the supernatural. She probably thought that she had seen so much loss and heart-ache that there was nothing more to hurt her. How wrong she was. Sure, he had killed a few of her friends incidentally along the way, that was one of the side effects of being around him, but what she did not know was that BOTH brothers had actually been trying to shelter her from the supernatural realm. Had been trying very hard in fact. And the presumptuous girl actually thought he was the monster! He gave a short barking laugh, his eyes hard. She had no idea what most vampires were really like. If he had really been a monster among his kind he would have laid the town waste by now. There would have been wholesale slaughter of the humans, covered by a wild fire, or some other occurrence. But no, he kept a low profile like his brother, blended with the town. It had been a form of amusement to see how suspiciously Stefan had regarded him. His brother was almost frantic at first trying to get to the bottom of what he was up to. And in fact, it had been nothing more sinister than boredom; he wanted to try the novelty of being on the straight and narrow like his brother. The fact that Elena was almost identical to Katherine was, interesting, but not much more than that.

He scowled and rubbed his neck in frustration, He could hear the breathing of the two girls up stairs, and the occasional rustle of the heavy leaves of the book that Bonnie was perusing, no doubt trying to find some way to uncover what had happened to Elena during the missing day.

She just did not get up and walk away, then reappear back in her bed a day later alone and unaided. So she had to have been abducted, so now the question was, by whom? If it was a vampire after the doppelganger, why return her? That made no sense at all, it was as illogical as Elijah killing the two vampires and leaving the two of them untouched.

But who would take her then put her back unharmed? A school prank could not leave her with any memory. There was just no logic to this. Anyone who wanted her would have no motive to bring her back.

He huffed impatiently. It seemed one of the only things to do was rely on Bonnie to somehow unravel this mystery.

His ears picked up the quick light steps of Caroline as she hurried up the walk, which meant that school was over and she was here to see about her friend.

He opened the door for her before she rang the door bell.

Caroline got directly to the point.

"She's here?" He nodded and jerked his head towards the stairs. "Asleep. Bonnie is with her."

She looked at him for a moment before giving an impatient movement of her shoulders and hands.

"Well?" her tone was annoyed.

"Well what?" He goaded, knowing full well of her question, but sidestepping the unpleasantness of admitting he had no idea what had happened.

"You know very well 'what'. What happened, where was she? Is she ok? When did she get back? How is she? Who found her?"

Damon raised his eyes sardonically. "Wow, I'm impressed, still going out for the journalism major?"

She looked at him blankly. "What are you talking about? I'm asking about Elena."

"You know, the five 'H's' or 'W's', who, what, when… Oh, never mind." He rolled his eyes. "She got home sometime in the night, I came as she was trying to drive over to see Stefan, she seemed to have no idea that she had lost a day. Had no idea she had been gone. She seems fine, other than having a cold or the flu, oh, and having some kind of respiratory attack that nearly killed her. She's asleep right now, why don't you go up and see if the witch has found any way to help us find out what happened?"

Caroline's eyes gleamed maliciously for a moment, "Careful, someone might think you are scared of Bonnie."

He lifted his chin and stared her down, "I'm NOT scared of her, I just get the impression that she does not like me that much."

Caroline gave a mock gasp, "Not like you? You can't be right about that!" Then she gave a grin over her shoulder as she went up the stairs.

When she got up the stairs she softly opened the door and slipped in the room.

Bonnie looked up and smiled at her as she sat on the window seat.

"Damon wants to know if you found anything to help us figure out where Elena has been." She softly whispered.

Bonnie shook her head.

"No, but I think I can now cure warts, make a dry cow have milk and keep potato bugs off a garden."

"That's no help." Observed Caroline flatly.

"Oh, gee, really? I don't think I knew that yet, thank you!" Bonnie snipped, irritated at the stating of the obvious.

"Well, I'm just saying…" Caroline defended.

Bonnie shook her head,

"Nothing I read seems even close to helping us find out what happened."

Caroline shrugged,

"Well, why don't you hypnotize her?"

Bonnie was torn between looking scornful and amused.

"I don't even know how to do that!"

"Yeah, but I could compel her to remember, that's sort of like being hypnotized."

Bonnie looked thoughtful, "But it's pretty clear that a vampire abducted her, there is no other way that she could have lost her memory like that, so can she even be 'de-compelled'? Wouldn't it like, cancel each other out?"

"I don't know…" Caroline looked uncertain.

"Let's try it." A new voice broke in on the conversation.

Both girls jerked around and stared at Elena.

She looked sleep bleared and pale, but there was a glint of the iron resolution in her eyes that both friends recognized.

"I'm serious." Elena insisted. "If I've lost a day I wanna know what the hell happened. We could at least try. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

"Are you sure?" Bonnie demurred. Elena sighed impatiently, "Yes I am sure, come on, let's get this over with."

"Ok," Caroline chirruped as she approached the bed and sat down. "Ok, take off any vervain you have on you. Now look at me, her eyes widened a fraction as she looked into Elena's eyes. "Umm, ok. What is your name?" Bonnie made a "what the hell?" look at Caroline who waved her off impatiently.

"Elena answered, "Elena Gilbert"

Caroline smiled happily , "Now, tell me what happened to Shugi my sock monkey when we were in third grade. Did you take it?"

"No, Jeremy did, he was mad at you for telling on him so he took him and went to the lake floating boats, Shugi 's boat flipped and he was lost. I was so mad at him for that, especially after you began to blame me, but I promised him I would not tell…"

Bonnie broke in, "Come on Caroline, you can't just do that to her! We are only supposed to be finding about what happened to her, get back to it or I will call it all off! I mean it!" Caroline sighed,
"Whatever, I was just trying to make sure it was going to work. Ok, now Elena, you are going to remember what happened the night you went missing. What happened?"

Elena sat still her face blank. Bonnie and Caroline looked at each other, then Elena spoke. "I am thinking of Jeremy, how he was terrified of all the costumed figures at Disney land. I have never let him know that I know he is terrified of Donald Duck still…" She stopped.

Caroline looked puzzled. "That's it? Donald Duck?"

Bonnie shushed her, "Ask her where she is? Is she in danger? Who does she see?"

Caroline leaned closer, "Elena, where are you? Do you feel afraid? Do you see any people?"

Elena wrinkled her brow, seeming to have some internal difficulty over this, then, "Dark, night. There is always one danger that you cannot out run, the danger from within."

That was all they were able to get from her, and it was no help at in discovering what had happened. They were back to trying to find something in Bonnie's book that could help. They decided to not tell Damon that they had attempted to reverse the compulsion; he would likely have been very annoyed that he had been left out of the loop.

Elena decided to try and get up for a while; she pulled out a pair of gray sweats and put her hair in a pony tail. This was not her usual standard of dressing, but somehow it seemed comforting, so she went with it.

She took some cold medicine and came down the stairs. There was already a meeting going on. Alaric, Damon and Jeremy were already in the living room deep in conversation. It stopped abruptly as she entered the room. She looked around and gave a half smile to everyone. Damon reached into his leather jacket and pulled out an inhaler and tossed it towards her. Instinctively she ducked and covered her face with her hands. "Wow, Damon, my sister really doesn't trust your throwing, does she?" Jeremy laughed.

"My throwing is perfect, thank you." Damon retorted, but he kept his eye locked on Elena with a strange look.

Elena bent to pick up the inhaler, and then sat down on the couch. There was complete silence as all eyes were on Elena. She could not take the silent scrutiny any longer.

"I am going to make some tea, anybody else want something?" There was a chorus of "No's" all around so she stepped away, glad to be out from under the microscope.

It was when she was pouring the tea that it happened. Alaric walked in to get some water, as he was walking past he put a friendly hand on her shoulder, "I'm glad you are ok, El…" There was nothing that was remotely threatening in his touch or mannerism, but she flinched and dropped the cup, splashing scalding hot tea over her legs.

"Hey!" He exclaimed. "I am so sorry; I did not mean to startle you!" But it was too late Elena had fled up the stairs to her bedroom.

This chapter is just setting a few things up for the rest of the story, so I am sorry if you found it slow. The next chapter will be very dark and hard to read. Please do not read if you are easily upset.

A.N. I want to express my gratitude to all my reviewers; you guys are very supportive and encouraging!

A few of you have been good enough to point out that I need to use contractions more, I hope you will see a marked improvement in my former non-use of them in this chapter! (I also went back and corrected the former chapters)

I know some of you have asked why I do not disable anon reviews, well, this may be weird, but I strongly believe everyone has a right to their opinion, and I have a good many positive anon reviews, and one that is a honest expression of their feelings. Everyone deserves a voice, and some would rather be anon, that is fine.

Re: "An honest respectful review" I am sorry if you were adversely affected by the story, My intention was not to offend anyone or sensationalize the subject matter. I did try and be as vigilant as I could in printing warnings so that readers would be aware of the nature of the story. Again, sorry.

There was a misunderstanding where a few of my readers were under the impression that I was not continuing because I was not getting as many reviews as I would have liked. The reverse is actually true, I am humbled and overwhelmed by the response to this story, I really have never gotten this amount of reviews per chapter before! I was writing an apology for the chapter being shorter than usual, saying I had lost my Muse in response to a vitriolic reviewer. But it is all good now, and will be continuing with the story.

Ok, a few responses to readers. Yes, I am German and proud of it! So this is being written in a second language (And in my opinion, one that is so WONDERFUL for writers, so many wonderful adjectives, so descriptive!)

Was Elena compelled into amnesia about the events when she was taken? Yes. More about that in the coming chapter.

As always, I welcome your feedback and opinions. Happy Reading!