A/N: Hi folks! Thanks for reviews, as always. Just a little word of warning, Damon gets a little, philosophical in this one! Hope you enjoy it.
Into The Wild
"All the things I keep inside myself,
They vanish in the air
All the anger and the eloquence,
Are bleeding into fear"
Nova Scotia. We're in fucking Nova Scotia. Who in their right mind thinks that Nova fucking Scotia is the place to bury some creepy ass immortal guy? There's a whole world out there people, coulda at least put him someplace a little more sunny.
The whole gang is here, minus Blondie and Lockwolf, they got left at home to babysit Klaus who is currently being held captive in Elena's living room thanks to Bonnie's new found magical powers. He really is a slave to the moon right now, and I guess we're all just hopin' he calms down enough while we're gone to not murder us all when we get home. Elena and Little Gilbert killed Kol, not that I'm sad to see the back of him.
Of course Stefan has decided that exactly what this trip needed was an Original groupie and decided to bring Barbie Klaus along for the ride. I think I'm gonna have my work cut out for me trying to keep Elena away from her.
"Couldn't they have hidden this cure in Hawaii?" I ask Professor creepy when he walks by. Technically we're not even in Nova Scotia, we're 200 miles away from mainland and this is beginning to feel like the beginning of a rather bad horror movie. I haven't decided which part I'll be playing yet.
"The whole point was to hide the cure on the world's most obscure and desolate island" see, horror movie. "Oh yeah? I thought the point was that no one found Silas, the oldest, deadliest freak in the world?" I really just wanna get this mad journey over with.
I find a grumpy Elena stomping away from a guilty Stefan after failing to take down a bitchy Original. "Looks like someone forgot her team building exercises" I say as she puts the White Oak stake back in her bag, "I'm not apologising for not wanting her here" and I wouldn't want you to, not like I want her here either.
"You know Stefan just brought her here to make it seem like he's moving on. He wants you to think that he's over you and he wants me to think that I can't get under his skin" thing is, I know how my brother works, thinks.
I can practically see the cogs turning in his head and no matter how loudly or frequently he might claim to not be in love with Elena anymore, to be over Elena, I know better. Trust me; you don't just get over Elena Gilbert.
"You know you're right" yeah, well I usually am with the fucking sire-bond in play, "with any luck I'll only have to tolerate her for a few more days and then we'll find the cure and we'll never have to deal with her again" there ya' go, that's the spirit 'Lena.
I'm not even sure why she's so pissed that Stefan slept with Rebekah anyway, I did the same thing and she wasn't this mad. But she's not jealous, she's just angry, I, think. Maybe it's 'cause this time Rebekah did actually kill her.
"You know, you've never talked about, what you'll do with the cure once we find it, will you take it?" huh, well, I haven't talked about it because I can't talk about it. "I don't wanna speculate" that's good enough right?
You know, for a person with such bad impulse control as I have, I think I'm doing a stand up job of watching what I say around Elena, granted, that's because I've barely been speaking since we confirmed the every-present, ever-pesky, sire-bond but still, I think I deserve some credit.
Elena looks a little confused at my evasive answer but she lets it go with a nod, she's a big girl, she can work it out by herself and when she does it won't matter because I won't have said anything.
The nutty Professor corals us all together and starts to lead us into the woods, "is anyone else a little creeped out?" oh don't worry sweetheart, I'll protect you, I got big bad fangs. Then again, so does she so I'm not sure what she's afraid of exactly.
"So then leave, out of everyone your presence is the least necessary" Barbie Klaus fires back. Actually, out of everyone I'd say my presence is the least necessary, only reason I'm here is for Elena. Rebekah runs through our list of most valuable players in order of importance but she left me out. "What about me?"
"You have a nice behind" well, you can't argue with that logic.
In all seriousness, I probably shoulda just stayed home to help babysit the big guy. I don't wanna be here. I don't wanna see this all go down. But I do wanna protect Elena, and if I'd stayed home I'd just end up going insane worrying about her and driving everyone else around me insane. Besides, I have like, what, another day, two at most that she's still sort of, mine, so I'll take what I can get at this point.
Shane starts sharing some ghost stories about Silas and a magic well that shows people visions of their dearly departed in exchange for some blood and now I'm starting to feel a little creeped out. But hey, it's probably just the dodgy plant-life, "don't eat the poisonous flowers".
I start walking again only to be stopped by the now even nuttier Professor shouting at us all to stop; evidently there are traps all over this island as well. "Stay together, keep your eyes open" well okay then, sounds like a solid plan.
We finally arrive at what appears to be a place we can rest where we get another teen ghost story from Shane about a bunch of dead college kids. "Well that's lovely, there's a mystery man with a hatchet lurking in the woods and we're just gonna camp?" yeah, apparently 'Lena and Little Gilbert didn't quite get the 'stick together' memo 'cause some guy just tried to murder Jeremy and an unknown person and/or species saved his life.
"We're safer here than we are hiking in the dark" he recalls that we are vampires right? Perfect night vision and all.
"Let's just keep goin', you know, get the cure, get in get out, where is it?" I'll go get it myself and be done with this mess.
"How stupid do you think I am?" did you want that on a sliding scale? Or just a straightforward 'very'?
"Stupid enough to raise an immortal witch so I'd say, incredibly" why am I always the only person that seems able to see the flaws in our plans?
"Yeah I'm shocked you even want the cure considering you've got the most to lose once Elena's human" which is one of the many reasons I don't want the fucking cure. But it's not often that I get what I want, so, not much new there.
As I turn to watch the Professor leave I see Elena standing there. Elena, who presumably overheard that and is now gonna want to start a conversation I don't wanna, I'm sorry, scratch that, a conversation I can't have, so I walk away.
Don't know why I bothered. "Shane doesn't know what he's talking about" she says as she comes up behind me, "yeah well, we'll find out tomorrow" can't wait.
"Do you really think that I'm gonna take this cure, break the sire-bond and fall out of love with you?" yeah Elena, yeah I kinda do actually, stands to fucking reason really.
"No, I'm saying we don't know" I say instead, "and if we find it tomorrow we will"
"This cure is gonna change so many things. Jeremy's not gonna want to kill me anymore. We're finally gonna get rid of Klaus, Bonnie's mom isn't gonna be a vampire and anyone who wants to take this cure is gonna have that option" including you. The girl we're doing it all for, and christ I hate myself for it but I've never been a good liar and I don't lie to myself and I don't want her to take the fucking cure. There are so many reasons I shouldn't be here right now.
"Caroline, Stefan, you, if you want it" I know what she wants from me, but this is something I can't give her, not this time, so I do what I do best, I deflect.
"No I get it, everything changes tomorrow it'll be all unicorns and rainbows" my entire life is gonna change when they find this damn cure and there's not a fucking thing I can do about it.
Not only will I have to contend with human Elena and all that that entails once again, I know my brother will take the damn thing too and then where will I be? Human Elena and human Stefan? Great, let's get the fucking party started.
I suppose I can play 'uncle' to all the messy little doppel-children they'll create. Good god sometimes I hate my mind.
"No not everything that's what I'm saying. Damon" Elena's voice pulls me back to the present and she reaches up and puts her hands on my face, "not my feelings for you" and it kills me but I search her eyes and find nothing but belief and sincerity, but I don't know what to believe.
She reaches up and pulls me in to kiss her and I let her, I kiss her back and it's gentle and sweet and tender and god I'm gonna miss this. I pull her into my body and wrap my arms around her because I really don't want her to see how very afraid I am of what's gonna happen tomorrow or whenever we find the damn cure.
Let me just take a minute to run down my issues with this thing.
First of all, we're possibly raising some crazy, psycho ass witch immortal who allegedly wants to bring about the end of the world. Yeah, great plan folks.
Next problem, honestly I don't want Elena to be human again. Kol was right in a lot of what he said in that bar. I love her even more now that she's a vampire. Hell I'll still love her after she takes the thing, I'll always love her, but vampire Elena is free.
She's wild, she's durable, she's hot as Hades, she's sexy as hell, she's a little firecracker, she's perfection. Know what else she is? Immortal. Well, save for wooden stakes and a couple other life ending issues that I'm sure would come up because that's just our lives, but she's a lot harder to kill than human Elena.
She gets a whole lot more than another sixty some odd years, she gets forever and I want forever with her. But I don't get what I want.
Problem number three is Klaus. I know they think that we can just force the cure on him but hello! Have they met Klaus? Guy is as slippery as a fucking eel and we'll be lucky, insanely, lucky, if we ever get close enough to fucking cure him. All we're gonna be left with is a human Elena blood-bag, and an even more pissed off Original Hybrid. That's assuming he doesn't just kill us all.
Up next is my brother, don't much want him to be human again either. In the end he'll die too and I'll be alone again. But he will, 'cause he wants to grow up and have babies.
Problem: he wants to do it with the girl I love.
Bigger problem: she'll probably let him.
And yeah, maybe I'm being cynical and bitter, and I'd love to believe with everything I got that she does really, truly, love me but I can't.
I can't let myself believe it because when she turns human again, breaks the sire-bond, whatever, and she doesn't love me, if, she doesn't love me, and I let myself believe that she did, then I don't think I will ever be able to get back up. And really, difference does it make anyway? Let me complete this fairytale for you, human Elena dies in the end.
The final problem, problem five, would be myself, but I don't even wanna start on that one right now, makes no difference anyway, I'm always a fucking problem.
After I sort out my tangled mess of problems into a nice neat order I finally let go of Elena and go to find Professor creepy who is having a conversation with Bonnie.
"You didn't answer the trust part" I say when he fails to respond to Bonnie's question to my liking, "you need me to help you through it Bonnie, 'cause as you've demonstrated expression can get messy" did he say expression? Isn't that what the witch in New Orleans talked about?
Shane goes on to explain that his wife was a powerful witch before she died, "you taught me the same magic that killed your wife?" Bonnie shouts at him. He replies that he knows the warning signs now, knows how to not kill her basically. "Down side is you turned her into a bomb that only you can dismantle" never gets any easier does it?
He's worked out that I never had any intention of keeping him around after he leads us all to the cure, but his mistake was in using Bonnie as his leverage, unfortunately our friendly conversation is cut short when Elena comes rushing to find me, her brother has mysteriously vanished into thin air and we spend hours searching for him through the night.
"Did you find anything?" Elena asks Bonnie when we catch up to her back at the camp ground, "he's not on the trail"
Shane comes out of the tent with Little Gilbert's bag, "his gears still here" and Stefan and Barbie Klaus come home to roost as well, "he's not at the quarry either" where the hell is he? "Split up" I say. We're on an island, shouldn't be this hard to find the kid.
Bonnie wants to cast a spell, Shane wants to 'keep her safe' and I want to continue my conversation with him so that leaves Elena with Stef and Goldilocks to search the island.
They go off and I find Shane in a cabin, "I'm done trusting you" and I force him to sit down. "Where's the cure?" he says that Silas and the cure are buried deep below the magic well of spirits, although he's never actually seen the place, only heard stories from his dead wife who told him aaall about Silas and how to set him free.
"Complete the hunters mark to access the spell, and empower a descendent of Qetsiyah to perform it" Bonnie? She's related to "this crazy ass witch?" kinda feel sorry for the girl, when you put it like that.
I put all my pieces together, rock, witch, hunter, but I really wanna know about the sacrifices. "As you can imagine that was not an easy pill to swallow" he goes on to explain what went down, he convinced the pastor that he could see his own dead wife again.
I'm sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the point in heaven? Love. That's the answer. Love makes people do all kindsa crazy shit, I should know.
"Is that why you brought us all out here in the middle of nowhere? To complete massacre number three?" 'cause that's just not gonna end well for you buddy.
"Doesn't work that way Damon" fine, I'm so done. I got nearly all my answers from him and I'm nearly ready for him to be dead.
"I think you need to tell me where this magical well is" of course he refuses, so I get creative, I love gettin' creative. Unfortunately, I'm on a deserted island so my creative juices only flow so far.
I tie him to the chair. "Where's the cure?"
"Does it matter? I mean, I think we both know you'd rather just torture me" well I like to think I'm a man capable of multi-tasking, pretty sure I can manage to do both.
"I mean look at you, hours away from Elena breaking her sire-bond, you're starting to freak out a little bit" buddy, I been freaking out for days, s'nothin' new. I give him a smile though because his futile attempts at prolonging his life deserve a reward.
"Listen, you want my advice: leave, go, don't put yourself through this" I smack the metal rod I found off of his leg.
"Fine, let's say her feelings for you are real" seriously guy? You really wanna do this? How did this even become about Elena?
"How does that end? She's human, you're a vampire" I smack the metal across his face this time.
"It's doomed Damon so you're not torturing me man, you're torturing yourself by helping them find the cure" yeah, maybe, but I'm doin' it for the girl I love. She wants the cure; I'll make sure she has the damn cure.
"I could kill you, and no one would find you"
"We've established that you can't kill me without sending Bonnie off the deep end" ah, but what we haven't est-ab-lished is that you severely overestimate Bonnie's importance to me.
I come around behind him and lean down to speak directly into his ear, "there is one flaw in your logic. I don't give a crap about Bonnie Bennett" I grab his chin and I'm about to snap his neck when Elena pulls me off and throws me into a wall.
"What is wrong with you?" oh I don't know Elena, everything work for you? And the fact that I can't talk to you about it? I shrug her arms off of me and walk away, but she follows, girls like my damn shadow.
"Shane is the only thing that's keeping Bonnie safe and you try to kill him? And you wonder why Bonnie hates you" so one witch is worth the price of the world Elena?
"I don't wonder Elena, 'cause I don't care. I don't care about her, I don't care about some lame-ass cure for vampires either" fuck I said that out loud, shit.
"How can you say that right now?" because I'm tired baby. I'm tired of pretending, I'm tired of not telling you the truth, I'm tired of the fucking games and the lies, and I am done.
"Because I don't want you to be cured" fuck the sire-bond. We'll deal with it another way, I'm sick of fucking holding all this shit inside.
"I'm not fighting with you about this anymore. Being human isn't gonna change my feelings for you" but don't you see 'Lena, it's not just about that.
"Fine, say they're real, say you become human and you still love me, then what? You grow old, you die, I stay a vampire. Face reality Elena, we don't work" fucking creepy Professor, if he hadn't gone on and on I probably wouldn't have even done this tonight, woulda just kept on pretendin'.
"So things aren't easy and you're just gonna push me away now?" best thing for everyone involved Elena.
"That's what you do Damon. You don't think that you don't deserve something so you ruin it" yeah, I gotta be, anywhere else right now, I turn to leave, "I'm not gonna let you pull that this time" and I walk away, she always has been the only one to ever understand me.
"Take the cure with me" she said what? Huh? I stop walking for a second but I don't turn around.
"That's how much I know this is real. That's how certain I am that I'm gonna love you even after this is all over. Take the cure. Be human with me. We can be together, grow old together, this doesn't have to be hard anymore"and with that, we come full circle back to problem number five, myself.
I don't wanna take the cure, "that's not me Elena, that's Stefan" I don't wanna be human, "you know I used to miss being human. Now I can't think of anything more miserable on earth" and with that, I walk away from Elena Gilbert.
I did miss it, it was my biggest secret, my deepest, hidden secret. I missed my humanity more than anything. The human race itself is nothing to be proud of, humans are just a bunch of weak-willed, hate-filled faces with a few hundred extraordinary ones thrown in for good measure.
I was never interested in babies, raising families, holding down a job just to pay the bills, any of that stuff, even when I was a human so why the fuck anyone thinks I'd want to go back to that I'll never know.
I am a vampire, top of the food chain. I can live forever, if I want to, if I'm careful. I got everything I ever needed and a whole lot more I don't, so no, I don't wanna be human. I missed my humanity.
I missed the emotions. I missed being able to be both. I missed being able to find the man inside the monster and being able to reconcile the pieces of myself, but Elena, Elena helped me do just that.
She fought a battle, still fights it actually, to bring my humanity back, she brought it back, she is my humanity. So no, I don't want 'easy'. I don't want to take the cure. I don't want to grow old. I don't want her to be human. And I don't want to be human and for that I'm sorry. Because I know it makes me a selfish dick but I never claimed to be a saint.
And while it, warms my heart, makes some parts of me happy, joyous even, that she would want me to take the cure, that she might envision a future in which she wants to have doppel-kids with me, this is something I can't do, this is something I can't give her.
There is almost nothing I wouldn't do for Elena, in fact there are literally two things I can think of, that I wouldn't be able to do for her, and one of those things, is become human again. I can't, won't, be a human again, not even for her.
I'm stalking through the woods trying to find my way, somewhere, anywhere, not even sure where really, when I get shot in the arm with an arrow. "You gotta be kidding me" 'cause tonight, just, hasn't been bad enough.
And then I'm attacked from behind, I get up and jump on my would-be attackers back and prepare to snap his neck when I see his tattoo. His hunter tattoo.
"You're one of the five" he rolls me off of him and I definitely can't kill this guy which could be a prob-
Darkness.
Dear Diary,
Coming for this cure may not have turned out to be the best idea I've ever had in my life. My brother is missing; Bonnie and Shane are god knows where.
Damon and I got into a fight, or, more accurately, Damon got into a fight and then he just disappeared and I don't know where he is and I'm worried about him. I don't know if he's coming back, I don't know if he went home, I don't know if he's in danger. I don't know if I know anything anymore.
I thought that all I wanted, more than anything, was to find this cure and be human again, and in parts of myself I do still want that, but in other parts of me I don't and I don't know if that's because of the sire-bond, because Damon told me tonight that he doesn't want me to take the cure, or if it's because I might have changed my mind.
I asked Damon to take the cure with me, to be human with me, but I get the distinct impression that he doesn't wanna be human, in fact, he said he couldn't think of anything more miserable on earth, and he said that we don't work, if I'm human, then we don't work. And he's right. One of us can't be human and one of us a vampire, and you can't have forever without eternity.
I don't know what I want anymore, I know that I love Damon, I don't know if I want to be a vampire, I never wanted this, I don't think I ever would have chosen this life, but, and, I don't know, I have to make a choice between being human and being with the man I love.
One of us has to bend on this, and I know that this time it won't be Damon. I think I've finally found something that Damon can't give me, and I don't resent him for it, because I know that at the end of the day, he'll still want me to do whatever it is that I want to do, whatever it is that I choose to do, because that's how much he loves me.
I need to figure out if I love him enough to give up my humanity, to give up my chance at a normal, human life, to give up my opportunities for children, family, and everything else that being a vampire is not compatible with.
And in parts of me, in my heart, in my soul, I think I already know the answer.
Elena