A. it took so long to update. I got the flu, then it turned into something worse, so I have been very miserable for over a week, and I was not having any luck writing. I hope you enjoy it none the less. I know I am bad with the cliffie... Sorry.
Elena started awake, startled by the thump of Damon landing on the floor.
"D'mon?" She slurred, unsure of her eyes, semi-rising on her elbow from her bed. She slowly swayed from side to side, still in the grips of the sedative.
"What are you do'in'? She queried uncertainly.
He scrambled up to his feet backing away from Elena, his eyes wide. He was panting slightly, his thoughts still in turmoil.
"Damon?" She was beginning to awaken more to the fact he was in her room and acting oddly.
"I, I have to go!" He stammered. His eyes flickered from side to side like a hunted animal .
"Ok, why?" her eyes were growing more curious.
"Because I have to go kill someone."
Then like that he was gone.
Elena yawned and took a deep breath, the incident seemed more and more like a dream, so she dismissed it as such in her mind.
But why was Damon so upset?
With that her last thought she slept again.
Damon was out in the woods running at his full speed, he was out in too short of a time, he circled back in and started screaming, ripping fully grown trees out of the ground, throwing them as far as he could in his rage. He felt as if he would explode from the emotions that he was feeling. It was like a living animal clawing inside of him, desperate to get out.
Damon let another roar as he grabbed another tree and pulled it up. (Later, Mrs. Lockwood would morn the tree as the oldest in Mystic Falls.)
He was about to go on a hunting trip trying to track down Elena's attacker, but then he reflected that he did not have a lot to go on, he needed more information. He needed to get into Elena's mind again to determine where this took place, where had she been taken? He needed to find a starting point for their trail. And on that note, how the hell had her abductor gotten past him that night? True he had been more focused on her getting out of the house, but still, he should have noticed if someone had come in and snatched her away. Shouldn't he?
He made his way back to the house in day light; he had found no success in detecting a trail around the house. He heard sounds of movement in the kitchen. It was Jeremy, probably pouring cereal. He took a breath and entered the house. He felt almost awkward; his unwanted burden of knowledge was a weight on him.
Elena woke that morning, for a moment her mind was a blessed blank, there was nothing that was in her mind, it was a clean slate for the day. But somewhere between her first waking breath and the following one, it changed. The day was no longer bright and good, it was dismal and grey. She was oppressed with a feeling of hopelessness and sadness that she could not rationalize. She got to her feet and pulled on her robe. Her sleep had been troubled with strange disturbing dreams, she could not quite remember what they were, but their impression lingered like a bad after taste. She could hear her brother in the kitchen as she descended the stairs; Elena shuffled in glaring daggers at her brother. He smiled at her for a moment before it faded into puzzlement as he detected her hostility.
"You look, not amused." Elena thought about confronting him about his drugging of her, but decided against it. She would wait and tell her girl friends, and then he would be sorry!
She tightened her lips as she thought about Stefan. She still had that feeling of something being very wrong.
"What's the matter?" her brother asked raising her eyebrows at her sulky silence. She stared at him moodily,
"I am a sick joke of an unstable universe, as if one of me did not cause enough havoc, it brought me back to make more of a mess of things. And now my boy-friend is locked in with Katherine 1.0, and now here I am 2.0. with a huge target on my back."
Jeremy looked unimpressed by her tirade.
"Wow, it must take a lot of work and energy to hate yourself so much." Then he flung her a grin, "Well at least you are not C3PO!"
She thought about flinging her orange juice on him, she could almost visualize the indignant shock on his face when it hit him. It made her feel just a fraction better. She stared at the juice in her cup and then looked up as Damon entered the house, without knocking, of course. She raised her eyebrows at him. He was filthy, his hair mussed and tangled, dirt was packed under his nails.
Bits of her strange dream from last night reoccurred to her as she looked at him. He had been in it. He was going to go kill someone or something. It was not that far off from the truth; he looked as if he had done some serious pillaging last night.
"Wow, rough night?" Jeremy asked, amusement coloring his voice as he took in Damon's disheveled appearance. Damon said nothing, his mouth compressed into a thin line as he looked everywhere in the kitchen but at Elena. She noticed this and concern for Stefan was her first reaction.
"Is Stefan all right? What has happened?"
He never bothered to look at her.
"He's fine." He did not tell her that he had not seen his brother since she came back, it was not like he could do anything about the spell, and he could not exactly get out for anything to happen to him, now could he?
It was almost impossible for him to look at Elena with the new knowledge, he felt shameful, dirty somehow. He almost felt as if he were in part to blame for the assault, as in fact he was. There was no use in denying it, if he had been as focused on protecting Elena from threats rather than guarding her in martyr attitude they would not have been able to get to her. So the blame for this did in fact rest squarely on his shoulders.
He turned abruptly on his heel and quickly vanished from the kitchen just as Elena had opened her mouth to ask another question. Jeremy raised his eyebrows as he shrugged at his sister. Damon was in one of those volatile moods that were best not to provoke.
Elena did not have the same compunction as her brother at the moment so she slid off the stool and followed him.
But right at that instant Bonnie knocked and came in the door. Elena paused and smiled at her friend then exclaimed
"Bonnie, what happened?" Her friend looked haggard and worn, as if she had not slept well in days.
"Nothing, I am fine, just a hard night, that's all." Jeremy looked up from his cereal in concern; Bonnie did not meet anyone's eyes, keeping her gaze on her feet.
"How are you doing?" She asked Elena, still not meeting her eyes.
"Better, much better, thanks. Almost one hundred percent. That spell you worked was awesome!"
Bonnie managed to force out a small smile as she took a peek at her friends face.
Elena looked tired, stressed and worn, but nothing beyond that.
Bonnie nodded her head and smiled too brightly."Great! That's just great! I am happy it worked, you know. I hate having a cold, it makes me so miserable. Hey, is Damon here? I want to talk to him, if not it's fine, I'll just catch him at his house, or maybe I will go see Stefan, I will see if he needs anything. Anyway, so glad you are feeling better, I really need to go now, my Dad does not know I am gone and he will be mad if he finds I bailed since I am supposed to be in bed sick. Ok, bye now! She too turned on her heel and left quickly. Elena and Jeremy looked at each other for a moment. Something was up with Bonnie. She never babbled, Caroline, yes. Bonnie, no, never.
"Well, that was weird." Jeremy said looking sourly after Bonnie as she left the house.
"Yeah, tell me about it." Elena huffed. Something was going on, something that she did not know about, she hated being left out.
She walked up to her room, her mind lingering on her strange dream about Damon being in her room saying he was going to kill someone? Why? Why did she feel as if there was so much more to last night than a dream? She made her bed up and heard her brother grousing at the flakes of dried vervian that had stuck to the sides of the tub.
"Elena! Really? Can't you rinse the tub out after your bath? That's just gross!"
"It's just an herb, rinse it with the shower and you will be fine!" She snapped. This was not shaping up to be a good day.
Bonnie pulled up to the Salvatore mansion and parked. She sighed, and then got out of her car. She was going to try and talk to Damon about what had happened to her last night. She could not tell Stefan for all the obvious reasons, Jeremy would be no help with it, and she did not want him more involved than he already was.
Elena was out of the question.
So the only one she could turn to was Damon. Her face wrinkled in disgust and for a fleeting moment she thought about trying to talk to Luca. But that would raise too many questions, questions she just did not have answers to.
She walked into the house without knocking; she could hear the sounds of someone taking a shower. It had to be Damon, so she sat in the living room to wait.
It was only a matter of minutes till she heard him turning off the water. Then, another ten minutes till he walked down the stairs. He did not look happy to see her. But then, he never was.
"What do you want?" he asked tersely.
Bonnie could tell by looking at him that he was in a terrible mood.
"I need.." The words almost choked her as she uttered them, "I need your help, it's Elena. Something is very wrong."
That got his attention.
"Tell me." The words were ice cold.
Bonnie took a deep breath and told the story of how she had the vision last night, how she suspected something terrible had happened to her friend.
To her surprise Damon did not interrupt her or make snide comments during her narrative, which was in its self a surprise, once she was one with her narrative he started asking for all the details he could, if she had gotten a clear look at who had done this to Elena, where this took place at. All kinds of little details.
"Wait," Bonnie said suspiciously, "Why are you so ready to accept what I am saying? Not that it is unwelcome or anything, but you usually are not on board with the whole 'listening to a witch' thing. What's up?"
Damon looked at her his eyes hooded.
"Because, I already know."
"WHAT! How? Does Elena know? How did you find out? What exactly happened to her?"
"I did a, a kind of, mind meld-y thing to her, where I got inside her head and poked around, since I had the power to get past the blocks that were put in her mind."
Bonnie gasped. "Damon, that is completely, totally wrong! You can't just go poking around people's heads whenever you feel like it!"
"Well, actually, yes I can. And, before you make my brain start to bleed, let me just tell you that I do not do it often, I do not tell anyone I can do it, and I could make you very sorry if you decided to share my little secret." The menacing threat in his voice was clear, but Bonnie just narrowed her eyes at him, unafraid.
Damon stood to his feet and shook his finger at her."You see, that is the WORST thing about young witches, you think you are invincible because you know some party tricks, but let me tell you, it would be only too easy for me to sneak up behind you and twist that pretty little neck of yours before you could even know I was there."
Bonnie looked at him coolly. "But you won't. You can't break the promise you made to Emily." Her words were self-assured and smooth.
"Whatever." Bonnie was done with the subject. "What are we going to do about Elena? We have a pretty good idea what happened to her now. So how do we find who was responsible for it? How do we tell her?"
Damon looked thoughtful a moment, then said, "I was hoping you could do a spell to track them, you know, the scrying thing. Would that work?"
"Maybe," Bonnie mused.
"How do we tell her?"
"We don't." Damon looked at her as if she were being dimwitted at the moment.
"If she does not remember it then there is no need to tell her."
"Damon, she already knows it on some level! She may not know why, but believe me; she knows something is very wrong right now. Her jumping away from Alaric when he only put his hand on her shoulder, her attacking you for going in her bedroom unannounced. She knows something is wrong, even if she does not know what it is yet. We can't just pretend nothing happened!"
"Yes we can." His voice was positive.
"Besides, what if she starts to remember it because you unlocked the memories? Will that happen?"
"No, at least I don't think so, there are some, um, other, side effects but not usually that one." Damon looked slightly less certain now.
"What do you mean, 'other side effects'?" Bonnie glared at him.
He quickly changed the subject.
"Look, I don't have the time to waste standing here with you arguing, will you help me find them or not?"
Bonnie nodded, as much as she preferred fighting with Damon, she knew she needed to help him find Elena's attackers.
"Hurry it up, I do not have all day, or actually, that is the exact amount of time I have to find them, they are planning on Klaus finding and taking her, so I have to be back on watch tonight."
Bonnie nodded. "I can also spell the house to make certain they do not get in. Wait." She frowned."How did they get in in the first place? They were not invited in, were they? How did they kidnap her?"
"That's what I would like to know." Snarled Damon. "Now, tell me what you need."
Bonnie hesitated, "Why don't you go back to e
Elena's house and watch as I get what I need, I will call you when I have everything I need. I should probably do it at Elena's house, because Jeremy is leaving for school soon and I do not want to leave her alone."
Damon did not look happy. "She will be suspicious if we are hovering over her all the time."
Bonnie met his look firmly. "She will think we are being over protective because she tried to turn herself over to Klaus. Now, are you in or out?"
Damon shrugged his shoulders, "See you at Elena's!" he called over his shoulder as he sauntered to the car.
He arrived in the living room silently, wishing to observe Elena for a few seconds but she huffed from the couch. "Ever heard of knocking?" Except that she was not about to assault him, it was Déjà vu.
Damon actually looked startled. "How did you know I was here?"
Elena shook her head at his inane question. "I heard you." She turned and looked over the back of the couch at him. "Why?"
"No, you didn't." He contradicted rudely. "I do not make a sound unless I want to"
"Well, you did, I was sitting here and I heard, um, I heard…"
She trailed off into silence a suddenly wary look on her face.
"See, you did not hear anything."
Elena was blinking at him in stunned silence, looking as if she had forgotten he was in the room.
He looked at her with a flash of concern. "Elena?"
She shook her head slightly. "Sorry."
He took a deep breath, being around her after he knew was not easy. But he would not tell her, she did not need to find out about it at all. He would deal with this his way. True, the emotions were hard to control; he was not used to feeling things so closely, so immediately. But he was a vampire for God's sake. He could do this!
He vaulted over the arm of the couch and landed in a sitting position beside her.
"What are we watching?" She looked annoyed but made room for him to sit beside her. "Local news."
"Hmm, interesting, anything going on?"
"Some kind of freak lightening storm knocked over a bunch of trees in the woods near here."
"Weird." And he focused on the news, it was clear they really had no idea what had caused it; he looked over at Elena out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting curled up in faded sweats; it was not a common thing for her to wear. He frowned as he wondered why she had departed from her usual dress. She stirred uncomfortably, looking at him, his eyes dropped instantly; he somehow could not bear to look into her eyes.
She shrugged at him and turned back to the TV, her mind wandering. She had been under a lot of stress the past few says, that was the only reason she could account for the unbelievable idea that she had almost thought she could hear Damon in her head when he first came in, not like she could hear his thoughts, more like she could feel his approach in her head. It was absurd of course. There was no way that could happen.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He did look like something was really bothering him. The blaring of the TV caught her attention, why is it that advertisements are always so much louder than the shows? She hated how they punched up the volume on them.
She reached over Damon to retrieve the remote and turn the volume down. Her hand grazed his shoulder, and in an instant her world was turned upside down in such a way that it would affect her forever.