A/N: This episode is one of my favourites, particularly from S4 so I really enjoyed writing it, hope you enjoy reading it too.

We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes

"I'll be your ether, you'll breathe me in you won't release
I'll be your liquor, demons will drown and float away
I'll be yours"

I've been wandering the streets for a few hours, thinking about a magical cure that can't possibly exist, and okay really, I'm just waiting for a more appropriate time of day to go and see Elena, when I get a distraught phone call from the girl herself. All she said was 'Damon help' and then promptly burst into tears; I got to her house less than twenty seconds later.

"I can't believe this happened, what am I gonna say to him?" she killed her brother, stabbed him right in the neck. I don't know the 'why' of the matter yet because honestly I've only just managed to get her to stop crying.

"Thanks for not ditching the family ring after it drove Ric crazy?" well, she's upset and me saying 'hey, you killed your brother, welcome to the club' is probably not gonna help her right now. Yeah, hmm.

"You shoulda called Stefan" – "I don't wanna talk to him, he's been lying to me and, hiding things from me. He compelled Jeremy to forget god knows what" we-ll, we might have a little problem in a few minutes then.

"In all fairness, I think you killing him kinda trumps that" god I am useless.

"You shoulda called Stefan" I say again when she turns to glare at me. "I don't trust him right now Damon" again, problem. Problem right now in fact, front door opens. "P.S – I called Stefan" please don't slap me.

I called him when she went to the bathroom to clean her face. As much as I love that Elena turns to me for help in times of crisis, Stefan is her boyfriend, not me. Stefan was her choice and I can't take care of her the way I want to without hurting my brother and that's not fair to him. So yeah, I called Stefan.

"Why didn't you call me?" he asks her, "I just, I need to go upstairs and shower, clean all the blood off my hands" and we both turn as she leaves the room, yeah she is pissed at him right now, that's gonna take some work.

At this opportune moment Baby Gilbert rises from the dead, "welcome back, how you feelin'?" Stefan asks him. I'd say he's feelin' like his sister just stabbed him in the neck with a kitchen knife. "What happened?" – "Long story, buy the e-book" I say and turn for the kitchen to get an early morning beverage and start cleaning up the blood, may as well make myself useful while I'm here.

I hear my name being mentioned a couple of times from upstairs and then tune out of their conversation because honestly I don't wanna know. After a few minutes I hear the shower come on and Stefan coming back down the stairs.

"Where'd Jeremy go?" I ask him when he comes to join me in the kitchen. "School, Bonnie has him volunteering for some Occult exhibit" oh, sounds riveting. "Or maybe he didn't wanna linger in a house where his sister just jammed a knife in his neck" that sounds much more likely.

Stefan's phone starts to ring "It's Klaus" he tells me, uh-oh "time to face the music, pay the piper, dance with the devil" boy I am just full of analogies today, I'm on fire.

"You know I'm glad you find this amusing, if he finds out I told you about the cure he'll kill both of us" why? What's the big deal anyway? It's not like I'm gonna do anything about it; I could care less about the stupid cure.

"Quit avoiding him" answer the damn phone and speak to him. I listen in on their conversation and Klaus sounds remarkably upbeat for someone who lost the hunter and one of his ever-decreasing in supply hybrids.

"I am concerned about your beloved, have the hallucination started yet?" halluci-what? What is he talking about? She's been hallucinating? Is that why she killed Jeremy?

"What do you know about that?" what does Stefan know about that? Why am I always the last to know things?

"I'm at her house" – "How convenient, so am I" right on cue there's a knock on the door, guessing that'd be Klaus then. Stefan goes outside to see him while I finish cleaning up the blood and wait for Elena.

"Damon" she looks terrified and starts backing away from me "no" – "What's wrong?" Fuckery! Damn hallucinations. She turns and runs for the door, "Elena" and I go after her, "'Lena" but she's gone. Klaus stole her. God. Dammit. We need reinforcements, Stefan calls the witch.

"You lost her?" she asks once we've filled her in on the situation. "Well, lost is a very strong word, we just technically don't know where she is" so if you could just perform one of your little spells then we can go get her and everything will be fine.

"I'm more worried about what Klaus said about this hunters curse" ah yes, the hunters curse, damn witches. Apparently, when a hunter is killed by a vampire he makes it his afterlife's mission to take down said vampire with him. Said vampire, in this case being, Elena.

"How does Klaus even know about this?" Bonnie asks "how does Klaus know anything? Guys like a billion years old" and he killed the first five, only, he's un-killable so I guess he just hallucinated for, ever? I dunno. Might go a ways to explaining why he's so damn cuh-razy though.

Bonnie says she can't do anything to stop the curse or find Elena but I say she can, and will.

"Wave your magic wand, hocus-pocus, be gone hunter-ghostess, whatever"

"The spirits won't let me do the magic I need to break the curse" well...ask nicely! "But I can ask Shane for help he knows everything about, everything" fantastic! Get right on that then witchy.

"You two do your thing" huh? He's leaving me with the witch?

"Where you goin'?" – "I'm gonna get her back" oh well, all right then, sounds like a solid plan Stefan. Guess I'm stuck with the wicked non-witch then, honestly, what is the point in a witch that can't do magic? It's like...wearing a watch that doesn't tell the damn time! Useless.

Bonnie and I head for the school where professor creepy is holding some exhibit and we walk in while he's babbling on about immortality and some guy called Silas. "You got this?" I ask Bonnie, "Yeah I'll bring him to you" good stuff.

I turn to leave "It's said that Silas wants to rise again" huh? "Regain his power, wreak havoc on the world" well, that sounds like a whole barrel full of fun. I am getting a little sick of fairytales.

I walk to Ric's classroom to wait for Bonnie to show up with the nutty professor and I find a bottle of bourbon in the desk drawer before putting my feet up on the desk. "You're missin' all of the adventure pal" the door opens and Bonnie walks in.

"Shane this is my friend Damon, he's kind of an, expert on this stuff too" since when are we friends? That's new. Never mind, can we skip to the save Elena part?

"I was kinda hoping you might have, stumbled upon this" I pull the drawing Jeremy did of the disappearing tattoo out of my pocket and pass it across to Shane. "This is the hunter's mark where did you get this?" not important, what is important is what you know.

"You know anything about the hunters curse?" – "Why you got a dead hunter in the trunk of your car or something?" yeah, or something buddy. "Metaphorically speaking" he explains the parts we know and then we finally get to the save Elena part.

A new hunter has to be 'awakened' for the 'legacy' to pass on. "They're called potentials" I pull my phone out and Shane leaves to get his research. "How are we supposed to find a potential hunter?" Bonnie asks, "yeah about that" turns out it won't be so hard to find another member of the fucking five after all. Only in Mystic Falls.

"Little Gilbert, your services are needed" I have decided that henceforth, Jeremy has been upgraded from 'Baby' to 'Little' Gilbert. He has become that useful to my life.

Shane comes back and gives us a folder of information, who is this guy, and then leaves again and we wait for Jeremy to turn up. "How did I not know any of this stuff about Jeremy?" the witch asks with her righteous indignation firmly back in place.

"The witch who loses her powers gets left out of the important conversations" and honestly, I barely pay enough attention to understand half the crap goin' on these days, plus she's the one who pulled a disappearing act.

"Is everything okay? Is it Elena?" Not exactly and yes, Little Gilbert. "We figured out how to help her, you need to kill a vampire" and soon.

"Yeah great, gimme a stake I'll kill Damon right now" screw you too buddy. "Easy Van Helsing, we'll get you one don't worry" man am I popular these days or what, my phone starts ringing while Bonnie explains the ins and outs of vampire killing to Jeremy.

"You can rest easy brother, we figured out how to solve our little Elena problem" my brother makes a distinctly painful noise before speaking, "yeah well now we have a bigger one. I lost her" you have got to be kidding me. Again? What is wrong with you Stefan?

"What? Again?" how is this happening right now? "She's in bad shape, I tried to help her but she attacked me" well you probably deserved that, truth be told. "Listen you go find her all right, talk her down, she'll listen to you" it'd certainly make a change but I'll give it a try. "Just tell me what I need to do to end this" I fill Stefan in on what's going on and what needs to be done as quickly as possible and then I take off to find Elena.

Not that it takes me very long, I know exactly where she'll be and I head straight for Wickery Bridge.

"Elena" – "Damon?" she turns away from me to find whoever she was talking to before I arrived but of course there's no one there, god I hate hallucinations.

"How did you find me?" how could I not? I will always find you.

"Didn't take a genius to figure it out. Third time's the charm?" I walk a little closer to her, but slowly because the last thing I need right now is to spook her and waste more time running around the place after her.

"You were right Damon. Vampires kill people. Stefan was right too. I can't live with myself" whoa there, less of the suicide-y talk please. "Look at you, bein' all glass is half-empty. Let's just go talk about this before you do something stupid okay?" she turns back to look at me and nods but I get the distinct impression it's not me she's agreeing with.

And then she looks down at her hand. Her ring-less. Hand.

"Where's your ring?" the fucking sun is about to rise.

"Where's your ring Elena?" she doesn't respond but I don't have time for twenty questions.

"We need to get you inside. What you're going through is a curse, we know how to break it we just have to get you inside" yeah, talking is not working.

"Dammit Elena" I run for her but she darts in the opposite direction. What the fuck is taking them so long to kill a damn vampire? Maybe I should have just offered myself up for the cause.

I sense it the second she comes back to me, the real Elena, not the half-crazy one. It's done. It's over. "He's gone" she says, though she's still looking around for him. Don't worry Elena, he's not coming back this time. "It's okay."

Oh Fuckery Fuck! She starts to burn as the sun rises higher. "Damon" yeah. Shit.

I grab her and leap into the water. Fucking hate swimming. It doesn't take me too long to find her ring in the weeds and rocks it's gotten itself tangled into and when I get it safely back on her finger I pull her out of the water and run her back home.

I call Blondie to come and take care of her and get her cleaned up while I go home and take my own shower, I woulda done it myself but if I ever get to see Elena naked it will be her choice.

When I get back to her house she's sleeping in bed and I send Caroline away and sit waiting for Elena to wake up, when she does I can see her examining her ring, "fished it out of the river for ya" I tell her. She looks a whole lot better than she did the last time I saw her.

"How you feeling?" – "My head's clear, I can remember everything but not like I lived it; like it was a really bad dream" yeah, hallucinations'll do that to you, I know the feeling well.

I give her a small smile to let her know that I'm happy she's better, "you saved me" yeah well, apparently it's just what I do 'Lena. "Thank you" anytime.

"Well you know what they say about teenage suicide" I stand up from the window seat and come sit down on her bed "don't do it" –"I just can't believe" – "You weren't yourself" I cut her off before she can continue her self-flagellation.

Then she reaches out and puts her hand on top of mine, "yeah but if it wasn't for you" oh god, she's holding my hand and she's looking at me with that same face, those same eyes that she did in Denver, all softness and, well, something and I hate myself for what I'm going to do, what I have to do.

Honestly, it's like being at war within myself because I love her so damn much and normally I'd say 'fuck it' and let the chips fall where they may and I want to, I really do. But I can't. Because as much as I love her; I also love my brother.

"I am about to take a very high and annoying road" I stroke her hands with my fingers once more and then let go, "and tell you something, because I know that you think Stefan's been lying to you, which, yeah, he has but this...rough patch that you two have been going through is not what you think. Everything that he's been doing he's been doing for you, to help you. And after he kills me for telling you this, I want you to throw my ashes off the Wickery Bridge 'kay?" ah good, I get a smile out of her. Hasn't done much to change the look in her eyes though, but I have to finish what I started.

"There may be a way out of this for you Elena, there may be a cure" she looks sufficiently shocked and I explain what's going on, leaving out the parts about Jeremy that will scare her as much as possible. When I'm done she just nods, says she understands and that she needs to talk to Stefan which I take as my cue to leave.

Way to go Salvatore, just, keep on pushing the girl you love into your brothers arms. That'll help you win her heart for sure.

I head for the Grill and order two bourbons when the quarterback approaches me and asks if I'm saving a spot for Ric.

"I'd say I'm in the market for a new drinking buddy. You're not qualified" because I don't like you.

"I know that you don't like me" can he read minds?"but I dug up some stuff about the explosion at the Young farm that I kinda need to tell someone about" well I got nothin' better to do with my time so get right to it, I'm listenin'.

He tells me that he found out Shane the creepy professor knew the pastor, which, weird, considering he also had all that information about Little Gilbert's tattoo and the hunters curse.

"You're on the verge of impressing me. Drive it home" 'cause I could really use some good news for a change.

"I got the sheriff to dig up the pastors phone records, turns out he made like, a call a day to the same number the last month he was alive. And on the day the council got blown up at the farm he called it ten times. The office of Professor Atticus Shane"

Well I'm not entirely convinced that this qualifies as good news but it's certainly intriguing so I'll take it. At this point I'll take anything that's remotely good.

Dear Diary,
I killed my brother last night. Or, the night before, I'm a little behind on my days right now. Thankfully he was still wearing the ring, he never took it off, so he came back to us. I called Damon to help me but Damon called Stefan even though I did not want Stefan there.

And then all of my worst fears came to life. All of my very darkest nightmares became reality because after I killed Connor I was left with the hunters curse. I was hallucinating, that's how I killed Jeremy, because I thought he was Connor.

Connor said that it was my fault that my parents died, that they died because of me, because they were on that bridge when they weren't supposed to be there and it is true. I stopped feeling guilty about it a long time ago because I couldn't carry that with me forever, but it doesn't change the truth of the matter, and the truth is it is my fault that they died.

And then Katherine appeared. And she said that I was just like her, she said that my friends probably hate me, that Bonnie probably hates me because of everything that's happened to her because of me, she said that my existence brings people nothing but pain.

And she was right too, about parts of what she said. I have become like her, but I won't continue to be. I refuse to let myself be anything like her. And I am scared that maybe Bonnie hates me, but I refuse to believe that, Bonnie is my best friend, we've been friends for a long time and I won't let a stupid hallucination come in and ruin everything.

And then my mom came, she said that killing myself was the right thing to do, that I was supposed to die on that bridge, not just once but twice, so I threw my ring in the water.

And then Damon came. And he was real. He wasn't a figment of my imagination, he was real and he saved me. Again. He jumped into the river with me and found my ring, and then he brought me home and had Caroline look after me and then he came back. He told me that Stefan has been hiding things from me because he is trying to help me.

Apparently there could be a cure for vampirism; there might be a way for me to be human again. And I'd like nothing more than to be human again, but it's probably just a myth, and even if it's not it does nothing to change things now, does nothing to change the things I've done, the things I feel, the things I want.

I broke up with Stefan, because what I want, more than anything, is Damon.

As a human Damon's love for me was consuming, my feelings for Damon were consuming, but as a vampire? It's more. Oh god it's so much more. The desire, the passion, the fire, the need, the want, it's everything.

I feel like I'm a train hurtling down the track towards him and I can't stop. And we're going to crash and it's going to burn and it's going to be everything, and I wouldn't stop if I could because I want it so much.

I don't think I was able to handle the depths of what I felt for Damon as a human. I couldn't handle him and his love for me but now I finally feel ready to let Damon love me. To love him back. Damon makes loving him hard, hating him, fighting with him, it's easier. Somehow I just don't really care anymore.

I'm going to talk to him at the Miss Mystic Pageant, I have a speech planned and everything and I feel excited about something for the first time in a long time, I just hope I'm not too late, he did practically shove me back to Stefan this morning, but I think that was just Damon trying to do the right thing because even if he won't admit it, he loves his brother too.
Elena