Before we do the A/N I just want to say that you guys are *freaking* AWESOME. Thanks you, from the bottom of my heart for your amazing reviews yesterday, you have no idea how much it means to me and special thanks to the guests that I can't personally reply to. I'm *so* glad you're all still with me on this journey.

A/N: So we're nearly at the end of Season 3! W-ow. I had fully intended on making Do Not Go Gentle into a complete chapter but it just *would. not. happen* so it's a summary instead. Farewell Team Badass. Ah, also no Elena's diary on account of her nearly dying and all.

Do Not Go Gentle & Before Sunset

"Do not go gentle into that good night/rage, rage against the dying light"

Esther takes over Rebekah's body and uses Klaus's affections for Caroline to convince him to go to the Decade Dance. Evil-Aric helps Esther get back into her own body and daggers Blondie Bex in the process.

Caroline convinces Elena to invite Stefan to the dance and he agrees.

Esther uses Ric's ring to make the White Oak stake indestructible in her quest to turn him into the Ultimate Hunter.

The gang have fun at the doomed Decade Dance for all of five minutes. Damon arrives to tell Stefan and Elena what's going on with Alaric and suggests that they "put him out of his misery."

Esther comes and takes Elena and leaves Damon, Stefan and the others trapped at the school with a binding spell and Damon goes to seek Bonnie's help.

Bonnie tries to find a way around the boundary spell and Elena tries to reach Ric's humanity before Esther can turn him. Esther steals Elena's blood to use in the spell to turn Ric into Evil-Aric for good.

"Drink and let it be done" – "No Ric please don't" Ric does. Esther stabs him and tells Elena that when he wakes he will be himself for a short time. She also tells Elena that "when the time is right, he will die" and that Aunt Jenna found peace.

Ric wakes up and kills Esther after she tries to turn Jeremy and Matt on each other, her death makes the boundary spell invalid and everyone comes to the cemetery to say goodbye to Ric who has chosen not to complete the transition in order to protect his family and friends.

Elena and Ric share an emotional, heartbreaking goodbye "taking care of you and Jeremy has been...it's been the closest I've ever come to the life I always wanted."

Klaus un-daggers Rebekah and screams bloody murder at his dead mother.

Damon sits with his best friend while he dies and Team Badass says goodbye. With bourbon. And a whole lotta sadness.

"Is this the part where you give me a dream?" – "Sorry I killed ya'. Twice"

Before Sunset

"Come back to me a while
Change your style again
Come back to me a while
Change your taste in men"

Man I got problems. I got problems comin' out of my ears. I got crisis's. I got catastrophes. I got big troubles.

My best friend is dead. Only to be replaced by someone who looks awful like him but is most definitely not him. We like to call him Evil-Aric. Aaand, he's gone. Vanished. Disappeared.

Gone with him is the new fancy ass White Oak stake which can kill us all. God only knows why he left me alive after Sabrina knocked me out with what is clearly an upgrade to her damned witchy-migraine spell.

Speaking of Sabrina, I found her lying in the crypt nearly drained dry. So I fed her my blood and now we're heading to Elena's surrounded by problems.

I mean, granted yeah, I probably shoulda locked the door at the crypt. But you know, my friend was dying and I wasn't exactly thinking straight.

I've seen a lot of people come and go over the years, kinda comes with the vampire territory ya know, it's a package deal. But it's been a very long time since I had a friend like Ric, and this one hit me a little differently, harder, than the rest.

Probably 'cause I don't have one of those 'dimmer' switches, come to think of it.

Stefan answers the door at Elena's house where I am waiting with a bleeding Bennett, "we have a problem"

I fill Stef in on what went down at the cemetery, "what do you mean he turned? I thought you were standing guard?" well don't blame me brother, "blame Bonnie the blood bag. She fed him" goddamn witchy interference. Who needs 'em?

"So where's the stake now?" ah that is the million dollar question Stef. "Oh, you mean the White Oak one? The one that can kill an Original and wipe out an entire line of vampires? We don't know" yes Bennett I'm looking at you.

"If you are so upset with me why did you feed me your blood to save my life?" oh, a hundred little reasons, all nicely summed up in one little name. Elena. Where is she by the way?

"Because I do stupid things Bonnie. I do things, like let my friend die with dignity when I should've just killed him" seriously, he woulda gotten over it; he got over it the first two times!

"All right so how do we kill him now?" huh, maybe that's the million dollar question. Who the hell knows?

"I've been trying to figure that out. A witch can't truly make an immortal creature, there's always a way to undo a spell" yeah, you gotta love those loopholes.

"So what's the witchy work-around" – "That's the problem. I don't know" of course you don't. Great, we'll add that it to the list that's threatening to make my brain explode in a much more permanent way than the witchy-migraines.

Doorbell rings. What's next?

"What are you doing here Klaus?" Klaus, I shoulda called that really.

"Well for starters young Jeremy here could show some manners and invite me inside" he's wearing vervain, right? "Why don't you go up to your room?" my brother suggests. "Now" I enforce.

"Hm. Poor lad, loses one questionable father figure only to be replaced by the likes of the two of you" hey now, I object to that statement. I'm more the 'big-brother' role filler really. On occasion.

Klaus already knows that Evil-Aric is up and about and intent on killing us all. "I'm leaving town, just need to pick up a few road-trip necessities. Spare tire, flashlight...doppelganger" sorry buddy, not happening. "Can't help you there" I pull Stefan back inside and close the door.

Where the hell is Elena? She's normally shown her pretty little face by now. I go to look for her but she's not here."Where is she?" – "She's not here" yeah I can see that Stefan. How the hell did she sneak past us? "Where did she go?"

Klaus is pacing the pavement outside with his 'someone's gonna die, painfully' expression on."Klaus wants in. We need to keep him out" I explain to Bonnie.

"Ah duck" I shout at them and hit the ground before Klaus sends a newspaper through the window, shattering it and sending glass everywhere. Still not gonna get him in the house though. All it means is that I have to pay for someone to come fix the damn window now.

"I think you're probably gonna want to let me in" nope, I really don't think we do actually.

Okay. Elena has just been elevated to problem number one. Where the hell is our girl?

"Elena's cars gone" the only reason Elena would leave and not tell anyone is if someone she loves is in danger, but most of those people are in this room so who – fuck!

Klaus is back with balls and...white picket fence stakes? That's, kinda ingenious actually. Oh. And he broke the door so I'll just add that to the list of things that need to be replaced and paid for.

He throws his first picket-stake and I duck before jumping right back up again "missed me", I grab it back out the wall and send it flying towards him and then he tries again. God Elena is not gonna be happy about this, he is destroying her kitchen. "Missed me again" Stefan's phone starts ringing "Alaric?" Alaric?

Fuck. Evil-Aric has Elena. And Blondie. At least I know I was right, she left for someone she loves.

Klaus walks back up to the front door with a can of gasoline and a burning paper and while I have considered burning this house and it's never-ending parade of ghosts to the ground once or twice before, now is probably not really the best time for that.

"Put it out" Stefan says as he goes to the door, "come outside and make me" Stefan goes outside, ironically enough, we actually need Klaus now.

"Elena's not here. Alaric has her and Caroline and he's gonna kill them both unless you turn yourself over to him" my brother explains the good news. "Now I know you're not asking me to walk into a certain death" hah, if only we could.

"Unfortunately if Alaric kills you there's a 1-in-4 chance that we die too" – "I'll take those odds" every. day. I mean what are the chances that Klaus is the daddy of our line? Yeah, yeah, 1-in-4 I get it.

"And a hundred percent chance that Tyler dies" well hey I'm fine with that too. But I reckon I'm the only one. Just wait til' you get bit by a damn werewolf, then we'll see if you change your tune.

"Why don't we just, figure out a way to put Alaric down hm?" Bonnie comes up with the goods, she thinks she might be able to do the desiccation spell on Evil-Aric that Abby did on Mikael back in the day.

"Even with the spell we'll still need a lot of vampire muscle to take him down, including yours" she tells Klaus. Yeah, get with the programme man.

"Just so we're clear, the sun sets in about eight hours, we don't succeed before then Elena'll be dead, I'll be gone and the rest of you will be left to fend for yourselves" charming, you gotta love the man's team spirit don't you.

Bonnie makes the call to her mom and I take her back to my house to wait. My house, where she is anxiously pacing the floors and probably gonna wear a hole in the new rug I just put down. "Well this is promising" I say with a glance at the clock. "Relax, Abby'll be here" hey I'm relaxed, you're the one who's doin' all the pacing.

"I'm sorry, I forgot about her stellar track record in the dependability department" but she's convinced she's coming and then the doorbell rings. "Don't get your hopes up, might be a girl scout" it's not. I can hear the heartbeat, slow, soft, steady; vampire.

I leave to get Abby some blood; well really I leave to give them a minute alone. I'm not a complete dick, all of the time. While I'm gone I make a phone call to a local repair company to come fix Elena's house so she doesn't have to see the destruction when we get her home, and then I send Stef a message to let him know that Abby turned up. He and Klaus have gone to the school to wait for us.

"Why didn't I have to be invited in?" I hear Abby ask as I come back, "we did sign over the deed to Elena but, she died, seal broke. Very long story, blood?" I offer her the glass but she doesn't respond. I guess she's still mad about not being dead-dead then. "Aw come on, think of it as a peace offering" no? Well okay then I'll drink it.

I shoot Bonnie a look so she can get on with the part where we come up with an actual plan; "we called you here because I need your help with a spell" she goes on to explain what we need but Abby says it's too dangerous, that she can't handle it. I disagree, nothing is too dangerous when it comes to saving Elena. Not even walking into certain death.

"You turned your back on me for sixteen years, you have no idea what I can handle" clearly Bonnie agrees with me. "Gotta say, I'm Team Bonnie on this one, how hard can it be to parch a vampire?" Abby babbles on about 'balance' and the 'living' and I'm confused.

"What? What does that mean? Bonnie I don't speak witch" – "I have to stop a human heart" ah great, now we need a human too? Well, there's really only one person for the job so I text Baby Gilbert and tell him to meet us at the high school of horrors.

On the way Bonnie shows me some new app on her phone that connects her to Blondie and 'Lena and shows her that they are in Ric's classroom. "Digital locater spell, why the hell do we need you then?" Joking, I'm joking!

"Hand it over" I tell Jeremy, "I'm not giving you my ring, let me do this" ah, no. That ring is the reason we're in this damn mess so no ring-wearing allowed.

"By my math you've already bit it once, possible twice wearing that thing...so gimme the ring" please, 'cause I don't wanna have'ta kill you. Again.

"This is my ring, Elena's my sister, no one's gonna fight harder for her than me" well, I might have to disagree with you there buddy but, "fine, be stubborn" I turn to Sabrina, "try not to kill him will ya'?" kinda fond of the little guy, truth be told.

"Look at this, one big happy family" Klaus, right, forgot about him for a minute. "Drink this, it's my blood" Bonnie says before going on to explain how we're supposed to take down Alaric.

"Before we walk thought these doors let's get on the same page shall we? I was the one who created your vampire bloodline therefore I am responsible for your lives, and Tyler's life, Caroline's life and of course, Abby's life should anything go wrong" oh say it isn't so! Why couldn't it have been...Elijah? I woulda been okay with that.

"Or you're just lying to save your ass" – "I'm not lying, but go ahead, call my bluff. Let the teacher kill me, you'll all be dead soon thereafter" remember what I said to Stef, about how the only way to call someone's bluff is to be willing to lose everything? Yeah, well, I'm not. So I guess it's Daddy-Klaus. Shame we can't desiccate him too. But yeah, one problem at a time okay.

"Let's just get this over with shall we?" yeah, let's do that. Klaus, Stef and I head for the school and while Klaus goes for Caroline, Stefan and I search for Elena and run right into Evil-Aric. Fortunately Klaus is right behind us and we grab hold of Evil-Aric's arms, "do it now" he's fucking strong. He throws us off and snaps Stefan's neck and then I go for him.

Darkness.

I come around from the darkness to the sound of my phone vibrating. What's going on? "Why am I still alive?" – "get up" why is he still alive? Stefan wakes up as well "I said get up. Klaus is gonna kill Elena" huh? No, he wouldn't.

"Klaus needs Elena's blood to make hybrids. She's the last person that he'd kill" right, what Stef said. "The witch bound my life to Elena's, if she dies I die. Klaus figured that out and now he's taken her" fucking no! How could he let that happen? "So you two better get doin' what you do best. Saving Elena's life" yeah. Come on brother, let's get to it. We got a girl to save. Again.

Stefan gets a message from Tyler telling him that Klaus has Elena at his house and on the way I call Bonnie to tell her to get ready to stop Jer's heart. We're gonna desiccate Klaus. Stef, Tyler and I grab him and Stefan does the deed. Which, kinda fitting really, he got his revenge in the end.

I let go of Klaus and head for Elena who is lying in a heap on the ground having been drained of her blood and hit her head, which is probably not a great combination. "Hey you okay?" I help her up and lead her away from the creepy-ass desiccation scene playing out in front of us. But at least we got somethin' good out of this day.

"We should get her home before the sun sets" Stefan says. Yeah, before Evil-Aric comes out to play again. I take Elena's hand and we walk out, time to get home and get safe.

"Huh, you two are really gonna, walk me all the way to the door aren't you?" well sweetheart between here and the front door you could definitely find some trouble to walk yourself into. It's kinda your thing.

"You lost a lot of blood today" Stefan says instead, "yeah I know but I told you I'm fine. I just, have a little headache" I remind her about Ric but as she says he can't hurt her, "It's you two we should be worrying about" – "Nah he won't be able to find us" Stef and I are taking a little road-trip to dispose of Klaus. Hide him somewhere no one will ever find him.

"I'll uh...we'll call you when we get back" Stefan says once Elena is safely inside her house and we turn to leave.

"I know it's selfish" huh? "I know that it seems like I'm stringing you both along but I...I don't know what I'm supposed to do" oh 'Lena, we get it. "I mean, if I choose one of you then I lose the other one and I've lost so many people. I just...I can't bear the thought of losing one of you" well that works both ways, but I know there's more to it than just that.

She thinks that she could break us apart by making a choice, and her biggest fear, has always been of becoming like Katherine. But she doesn't understand that she's so far removed from Katherine that they may as well be on entirely different planets.

I indicate my head towards Stef to let him take over, I've never been all that good at making things better, tend to just make them worse. "It's um, it's been a long day" well that was beyond useless Stefan! You're supposed to be the one that's good with the words. Fine, I'll give it a shot then.

"Yeah, we'll call you from the road. After we dump Klaus's body in the Atlantic" – "Just...be careful, both of you" always lovely girl, always.

At some point, she is gonna have to make a choice though. As much as Elena is the opposite of everything that Katherine is, I can't go through this again forever. And I know that my brother can't either. But there's plenty of time left for all of that.

"How many desiccated hybrids does it take to screw in a light bulb?" I ask Stefan once we're on the road, "you're in a good mood" damn right I am! Klaus is dead-ish. Stefan is sane-ish. "Give or take an immortal hunter who wants to kill us; we won Stefan. Come on, say it. Say it" – "We won" again! "Once more with feeling" – "We won" that's the spirit brother!

"Turns out we make a pretty good team huh?" yeah who'da thought it? "It only took a century and a half" and this is what Elena doesn't get. She hasn't driven us apart, she couldn't drive us apart. She's brought us together. She's given me my brother back.

"What happens when uh, Elena makes a decision?" clearly my brother's thoughts are travelling the same path as mine. "You know how these things pan out Stefan, she'll probably make a list of pros and cons and at the end of the day dump both of our asses" or, she won't.

"What if she doesn't?" – "Then she'll pick one of us" and she will, in the end, because she won't be like Katherine. Then again, Katherine made a choice in the very end too. And if I have to venture a guess, I'd reason that Elena's gonna make the same one. Yeah, sucks to be me.

"Well if she chooses you I'll leave town and let you two be happy and not be bothered by me" I guess Stefan's come to the same conclusion that I have because otherwise there is no way he'd ever offer to leave town.

"And in sixty years we'll go back to being brothers and none of this will have mattered right?" and now I'm gonna have to leave town 'cause otherwise I just look like a dick. And, truth be told, I don't wanna stick around, if, when, she chooses Stefan. I don't wanna have to see it, don't wanna know.

At the end of the day, all I want is for her to be happy. Truly, happy. While I don't believe that that happiness lies with my brother, if she does, then I have to learn to live with that.

"Fine if she chooses you I'll leave town too" it's not like I wouldn't only be a phone call away if she ever ran into danger which, let's face it is still every other Tuesday around here.

"All this over one girl" such a fucking amazing girl though.

"She's a pretty special girl" yeah, "Yes she is" so damn special.