Chapter 21
Elena jumps up from her seat on the bed. "Why is Damon in my bed?"
"To annoy me," vampire Elena says with a half-smile. Sounds of someone preparing for bed draw her eyes to the bathroom door. "This isn't it. This isn't the right memory."
"You're kidding." Human Elena sighs and looks around the room. "Then why this memory? What happened to trigger this one over the one we want?"
Elena can only offer her frustrated counterpart a shrug. She's not certain why this memory manifested. There's nothing significant about it, is there?
"Agh!" Memory Elena stops mid-way between her bathroom and bed and groans at finding Damon lying across her sheets. His arms are crossed behind his head, and he's sporting a pleased expression at having surprised the young brunette. "Damon, seriously?"
"We got Michael."
"What? How?"
"No idea. I guess Katherine came through. The plan's in motion," he says, excitement edging into his voice and no small amount of smugness. "See? I told you, I had it."
Pressing her lips into a thin line, Elena tilts her head at him, but she doesn't argue.
"Go ahead. Kick, yell, scream. I'm sure you've been planning your rant all day," Damon says.
Elena shakes her head and pulls at the sheets on her side of the bed. "I'm not going to yell at you."
"Why not? I went behind your back. I freed Stefan. And you know what, it backfired. He's an even bigger dick than ever. It's just now he's a dick that's on our side."
"I'm not mad. I'm tired. I just…I want to go to bed." Elena tugs on the sheets trapped under Damon, but he ignores her attempts to get him out of her bed and wonders out loud.
"You know, I think Michael's weapon is a stake because he mentioned something about it."
"Well, then they must've carved it from the white oak tree before they burned it down," she snaps.
"So I was right."
Fed up, Elena rolls her eyes and drops the sheets to slip into bed next to Damon.
"After all that, the wall led us to Michael," he says.
"It led us to more than just that," Elena says. She stares at the ceiling in thought. "I think it got Rebekah on our side too."
"Really?" Damon adjusts his head so as to get a better view of his doppelgänger. "What'd you learn from her?"
"I learned that she's just a girl. That she lost her mom too young and…she loves blindly and recklessly, even if it consumes her."
As she speaks Damon watches Elena's expression. He wonders if she realizes that she'd just described herself, and he hopes Elena isn't empathizing with the thousand-year-old blond bitch from hell. He suspects that eventually he's going to have to kill Rebekah, and it's going to be a lot harder if Elena's made friends with her. Although if they become good enough friends, maybe Rebekah could play body guard on occasion. It'd be nice not to have to worry about Elena all the time, even if she has developed quiet the right hook thanks to Mystic Fall's resident vampire hunter slash history teacher.
When Elena looks at him, the familiarity of her words rings in Damon's mind and warms his heart. His brow furls and he forgets to breath for moment. Does she remember the night they met? No, that's not possible. But, the way she's looking at him…
Elena watches Damon as carefully as he watches her. Describing Rebekah in so many words reminded her of him. He's so passionate and reckless. It's like he's waiting for a love to consume him, even if the object of his affection doesn't return his dedication. For a moment, Elena wonders what it would be like to feel that kind of love and passion. To feel like the world only exists for one person. That no one else matters. Could she ever be that selfish? No, not when she has Jeremy to look after. That's why she needs Stefan back. He understands that it's not right to love someone that much. It's not right to put them above everyone else. People are important. Family is important.
"And when all is said and done, there's nothing more important than the bond of family," Elena says, rolling on to her side to look directly at Damon. It's rare that Elena lets him get this close, so he nonchalantly shifts to meet her at the center of the bed.
"Well, you should tell that to my brother."
Elena snickers at the remark before regaining her solemn expression. As she speaks, she reaches to turn off her bedside lamp. "I'm not mad at you for letting him out, Damon. I think that you're going to be the one to save him from himself. It won't be because he loves me. It'll be because he loves you."
Damon watches Elena whisper the truth to him in the dark, and he can't help but hope that she's right. He wants to save his brother. He hates what Stefan goes through after each ripper binge. So far, this one's been fairly tame compared to ones in the past. 1912 is a great example of how bad he can get. But if Damon can get Stefan back on track, maybe he can teach his little brother some control. Of course, the moment Saint Stefan is back, Damon's time with Elena will disappear. He'll be regulated back to body guard or worse, brother-in-law. Then Elena does something surprising.
"Can I tell you the rest tomorrow," she whispers.
When he murmurs an agreement, Elena closes her eyes to doze off. With Damon still in her bed. He tucks his face in tighter to the pillow in effort to garner a better view of Sleeping Beauty's face, but otherwise, he dares not move for fear that she'll wake up and kick him out. How sad is he? When did he become so pathetic that he's perfectly happy to lie in Elena's bed and watch her sleep? If she were anyone else, Damon wouldn't hesitate to touch and caress. Basically, show her the time of her life. He'd make her forget all about his little brother.
But this isn't just anyone. It's Elena. And frankly, he's terrified to do anything else. Keeping her safe is on him and only him. He has to protect her from Stefan, Klaus, Rebekah, and now Michael. When it comes to strength, he's outmatched by everyone on the board, so he has to be sneakier than all of them. To do that, he needs Elena to trust him and not fight against him when it comes to the hard decisions. He needs her to be on his side completely. That means he can't risk pissing her off with another failed attempt to woo her. But being her friend is becoming increasingly difficult. Sometimes, she is just too damn irresistible, like right now.
Elena sighs into her pillow. She's not quiet asleep, but right on the edge. She shifts to get comfortable and ends up snuggled against his chest. Damon holds his arm up in the air so that it's not in her way, but then he's not sure what to do with it. She inhales deeply with her eyes still closed as though enjoying his smell, and he smirks at her. He keeps his hand in the air like a big dork, but he doesn't seem to mind.
"It's wrong of you to be that friendly with Damon," human Elena says to her vampiric counterpart. "You're just leading him on, and you'll end up hurting him."
"I wasn't trying to hurt him," vampire Elena says, but a spear of regret stabs at her heart. Something about the human's words rings true. She knows how this love story ends, but maybe the journey wasn't as smooth as the sequel.
"Stefan…" Memory Elena murmurs in her sleep, and her two counterparts stop to watch. Damon's expression sours, and he drops his hand to graze her back. With the grace that only a vampire his age could muster, Damon slips away from Elena as she dances between dream and reality.
"You hurt him, didn't you?" human Elena asks. The uncertainty in vampire Elena's glance confirms her suspicions, and Elena feels a sudden burst of anger toward her future self. How could she treat Damon that way? How could she give him hope and snatch it away like that? Damon is an asshole at times, yes, but he doesn't deserve to be toyed with. Elena has always tried to be straight with Damon to avoid this very situation. How could any version of her think this is okay?
With a sour taste in his mouth, Damon stands next to the open window to watch memory Elena. Just as he turns to leave, another soft breath escapes from Elena's lips, and it sends a shiver of satisfaction down his spine that releases his trademark smirk.
"Damon…"
The memory fades as Damon climbs out of the bedroom window and both Elenas look at each other. The human is very unhappy with the turn of events, but the vampire is excited to see her love story play out. She knows at this point, Stefan has broken up with her, but she's still in love with him. Her feelings for Damon are obviously growing, but she's still very confused. The fact that Damon isn't actively trying to seduce her, somehow makes Elena love him more, but she's not sure why. He obviously loves her and desperately wants her to love him back, but he's not acting on his desires. He's just doing what needs to be done. He's keeping her safe and trying to save his brother at the same time. But that's a tall order considering how dangerous Mystic Falls is at the moment. Damon and Elena have very few people they can trust at this point. And human Elena's complaint regarding Damon's heart is a valid one. Damon is trusting her with his heart, does she let him down somehow?
"What's going on? Where are we?" human Elena asks.
Vampire Elena looks around to find that the faded memory did not return them to reality. "It's another memory."
"How? This hasn't happen before. Why aren't we back to reality?"
"It's because I pulled you into my mind before the memory strike. This is what I was hoping for. Your presence is weakening the compulsion and the power from the strike is able to break through multiple memory barriers. I think. Maybe. I don't know."
"Okay, I'm going to pretend like that makes sense. So why this memory? And the other?"
"I don't know." Vampire Elena throws her hands into the air in exasperation. "Maybe because they both have beds in the memory?"
"That's ridiculous, but whatever. This is Stefan's room. When is this? And who is that?" The human says, looking around. She cringes at the dead, blonde vampire lying face down on Stefan's floor. She's dressed in a red prom dress at memory Elena's feet.
"This is right after that last memory. A day or two maybe. That's Rebekah." Elena points at the blonde on the floor, then looks at memory Elena, who is notably rattled. With a painful groan, she covers her mouth with her hands. Tears well up in her eyes, but she squeezes them shut and shakes her head.
"Stop it. You are stronger than this," Elena says to herself as she wipes away the tears. She drops her hands with a sigh that helps to calm her nerves and re-center herself.
"Damon!" She calls out, knowing he'll come. Sure enough, a few moments later Damon strolls through the open door to Stefan's room with an annoyed expression.
"You know, I'm only trying to prepare for the Klausageddon here." He stops mid-step when he sees Rebekah's desiccated body lying on the floor. "Well that's one less item on my to-do list."
He watches Elena sit on Stefan's bed with an overly apologetic expression. He shrugs and grabs a blanket from the closet. After covering her prone form, he kneels next to Rebekah.
"In the back. Harsh."
"It had to be done," Elena says, waving her hands as a defense to her own guilt. "Rebekah was never going to be completely on our side."
"Hey, I'm not judging you. It's very…Katherine of you."
"Not the way to make me feel better about myself, Damon."
"It was a compliment," he says and then grimaces. "Sort of."
"Stefan's right. Someone's going to let their humanity get in the way and screw this whole thing up. And, it's probably going to be me," Elena says, and Damon can see her anxiety overwhelming her.
"Elena," he says, standing to sit next to her on the bed. "You just daggered somebody. You're going to be fine."
"Yeah, but I feel bad about it. I care too much. That's the problem, Damon. I'm the weak link."
"If it makes you feel any better, she's not really dead."
Elena ignores him as she considers the plan for tonight. They are so close to getting rid of Klaus, to freeing Stefan. What if she screws it all up? What if she's the reason Klaus wins and keeps Stefan on his leash? What if she's the reason Damon loses his brother? Could he ever forgive her for that kind of mistake? Could she forgive herself? What if things go really wrong and someone is killed? What if Stefan dies? Or Damon? The thought of losing either Salvatore in such a permanent fashion terrifies Elena even more. So much rides on the success of this plan. So much rides on Mikael and trusting that he won't betray them.
"Do you trust him? Mikael?" She asks, not sure what answer would frighten her more.
"Nope." Damon answers with such certainty that Elena's surprise by it.
"What about Stefan?"
"No." Again he answers quickly. "Not as long as he's under Klaus' control."
"Then we need a better plan," Elena says. Their current plan hinges on Mikael and Stefan. If they can't be trusted, how can they possibly expect a successful outcome?
"I know what to do." Damon shrugs. "You're just not going to like it."
"Why not?"
"Because when this all goes down, I don't want you having any part of it."
Elena frowns. "What does that mean?"
Damon watches Elena as she waits patiently for his response. When did she grow this strong? When did Elena grow tough enough to fight her trusting nature so as to do what needs to be done? To stab an Original in the back rather than trust her to keep her word? It was just a few months ago that she was ready to trust Elijah with her life. Today, she's conspiring against an Original hybrid and his Jerry Springer inspired family. Is it all to save Stefan? Or is she worried about Damon too? It doesn't matter. Damon has to save Stefan, kill Klaus, and keep Elena safe. Everything in between is filler. But will she do what he asks? Can she sit on the side lines, while Damon saves the day? She's had no problem trusting Stefan to play the hero when necessary, but Damon doesn't have a hero hair-do. He isn't Stefan.
"Do you trust me?" He asks, looking into her brown, doe eyes.
"Yes." She answers so quickly and confidently that Damon can't help the warmth in his chest nor the smile on his lips.
"Then, you have nothing to worry about."
Damon's confident smirk sends a flutter through Elena's stomach, and a different kind of anxiety blossoms. She tucks a stray hair behind her ear and looks away from his intense stare.
"Can you be more specific?"
"He means me," Katherine says from the doorway, and Elena jumps to her feet in surprise. "Oh, did I interrupt? I know Stefan isn't much fun in his current state, but you haven't forgotten about him already, have you?"
Elena frowns at her doppelgänger and crosses her arms over her chest. "What are doing her, Katherine?"
"I came because Damon invited me. Something about saving Stefan and killing Klaus." She slinks closer to the older Salvatore brother and slips her arms over his shoulders. "Last I heard, you two were fighting. I see you made up. What a shame."
Damon rolls his eyes. Why does she insist on antagonizing him every time she sees him? How many times does he have to make it clear that he's over her? Then Damon catches the angry glare that Elena is throwing Katherine, and he puts two and two together. The Queen Bitch is goading Elena, not him.
"You invited her here? Like we don't have enough problems?" Elena says without looking at him. She can't take her eyes off the evil slut kneeling on the bed at Damon's back and slowly sliding her hands over his arms. And he's just letting her do it.
"Hey, doppelgänger hijinks keep you of the line of fire," Damon says, ignoring Katherine's touch. He needs Katherine to play along with the plan and pissing her off won't help his case. He's more concerned with the sudden backlash from Elena. One minute she trusts him, and the next, she doesn't. Choose a lane already.
Damon notices when Elena's eyes track the delicate hands moving up his arms and to his shoulders. He frowns at her obvious distaste for the five-hundred-year-old vampire. Doesn't she know Katherine is just trying to get to her? Katherine is like a toddler in that responding to her bad behavior just encourages it. Although, Damon can't help but take a small amount of pleasure in Elena's obvious display of jealousy. For him. Alas, all good things must come to an end. So when Katherine's hands attempt to move South down his chest, he snatches them and pushes her away.
"So I'm just here to play decoy? How original," Katherine says. She stretches across Stefan's bed while popping her chest out and arching her back.
Damon sneers. "It's the only useful talent you have, Katherine."
"You're probably right," she says with a pout before smiling devilishly from under long eyelashes. "If I remember correctly, your most admirable talent is restricted to the bedroom. Wouldn't you agree, Elena?"
"You do see the dead Original on the floor, right?" Elena says. Katherine raises an eyebrow and leans over enough to eye the body shaped blanket on the floor.
"Is that Rebekah?"
"Yep." Damon smirks and motions to Elena. "So let's not piss off Miss Van Helsing over here."
"Fine. I get it. Sex with Damon is off limits." Katherine waves her hands in defeat as she stands from the bed. "How about Stefan? He's delicious, isn't he? I had a hard time choosing the better lover. Tell me, which one do you think is better."
"Alright, that's enough." Damon snatches Katherine's arm and tugs her toward the door while she cackles. Elena glowers at the insinuation and refuses to let it go.
"I'm not you, Katherine. I haven't slept with Damon. I wouldn't hurt him like that."
Damon ignores Elena's proclamation with a clenched jaw. The meaning behind her words is nothing new to him. He knows that Elena's heart belongs to Stefan. It will always be Stefan. But lately…it just seemed like 'always' may not be always. Of course that was wishful thinking, and Damon admonishes himself for indulging. He has to stay focused on the task at hand.
Katherine, on the other hand, grins and winks at Elena over her shoulder.
"Yet."
Elena growls at the empty doorway and plops down on to the bed. Vampire Elena watches her memory versions stare at the ceiling and fume. She remembers the anger burning through her at the thought of that evil slut touching Damon. At the time, she attributed her anger to Katherine's presence in general. Even now, memory Elena worries that Katherine could send Stefan into a deeper hole of depravity. It occurs to vampire Elena, that she never once considered the possibility that Katherine could unhinge Damon again. Which is odd, considering her history of doing just that.
"Wait, now you're working with Katherine too? You said she killed Jeremy," human Elena says, pacing across the room.
"She did, or does…it hasn't happened, yet."
"But she's still Katherine. Why were her and Damon so…friendly. Did they make up or something? Are they together? She accused you of sleeping with him, but you…I…wouldn't do that."
"I didn't want to hurt him."
"You didn't let her hurt him either, right? Katherine, I mean. She's done it before. Twirled him around her little finger just to mess with him and make him lash out. He'll hurt people," human Elena says, a deep concern emanating from her pursed lips and wide eyes.
Vampire Elena watches her counterpart worry more for everyone around Damon, rather than for the man himself. She glances at memory Elena lying on the bed, remembering the concern for Damon she's experiencing.
"This is so weird," she says.
"You're telling me." Human Elena flips her hands in the air as if that summed up the absurdity of this entire situation. "Why are we even here in this memory? What triggered it instead of the one we wanted? At his point, I'm not sure I care about the other memory. I just want you to tell me how to stop Klaus from taking Stefan, and we can avoid all this."
"No," vampire Elena says, then clarifies when the other doppelgänger stops pacing to glare at her. "I mean, yes. I'll tell you whatever you want about Klaus and Stefan and that whole debacle. But that's not the weird part."
"What do you mean? Nothing about this is normal."
"I know, but I meant you two." Vampire Elena points at her other two versions. "I get the differences between you and I. There are two hundred years of life experiences between us. There are bound to be some differences in our personalities. But you two are less than a year apart. How are you this different?"
"How are we different?" The human asks, intrigued by the observation. She steps closer to memory Elena. They certainly don't look different.
"I know what she's thinking and feeling, right now. I remember experiencing it because I was her. I laid on that bed and worried that Katherine would mess with Stefan, that she would betray us. I worried that Mikael would betray us. I worried that everything would go wrong and people would die. That Stefan or Damon would die. I worried about my friends and Jeremy getting caught up as collateral damage. I worried about everyone getting hurt or betraying us. I worried that even Stefan would betray us, but it never once occurred to me that Damon would betray us or that he would let Katherine affect him like she did before."
"And it's the first thing I jumped to."
"Exactly."
"You meant it when you said that you trusted him, didn't you?" Human Elena asks.
"Yes."
"More than Stefan?"
"Given Stefan's current off the rail status, I'd say yes," Elena says with a nervous chuckle. She's trying to avoid lying to her counterpart, but she's getting awfully close to the true nature of her relationship with Damon.
"You do save him, right? You get him back on the wagon like we did before?"
"Yeah, I mean, this time was different. It was harder. But yeah, we save him."
"After you save him, and he's the Stefan that we both love again," human Elena pauses mid-sentence. Anxiety rushes over her and putting to words her question becomes nearly impossible. It feels like her questions is the single block holding up a precarious Jenga tower. No matter how gently she tugs on this block, or asks her question, Elena knows something is going to crumble. Something that she's adamantly been ignoring, but can't admit it. So she hesitates. She hesitates long enough for the vampire to recognize her plight and the concern weighing on her.
"Don't worry, we eventually rebuild that trust," vampire Elena says, and the human nods with a sigh of relief.
"Good. I mean, of course you do. You spend the next two hundred years together. I don't know why I…" She shakes her head to disperse the worrisome thoughts. Feeling better, she turns back to vampire Elena to find her hiding a guilty expression. "What's that look?"
"What look? There's no look."
"Oh, my God. I am a bad liar. What are you not saying? Stefan and I do spend the next two hundred years together, right? I mean, what's the point of living forever if you can't spend it with the man you love?"
"But, you do. I have. I've been with the man I love. I can't imagine my life without him," Elena says with a certainty that pushes the panicking human onto her heels.
"Then what's the problem?"
"Life's complicated," she says, but human Elena isn't having any of it. She grabs the vampire's arms and demands the truth.
"Show me the future. Show me my life with Stefan, with the man I love."
"I can't." Vampire Elena places her hands over her counterpart's vice grip. If she were human, it might hurt. "I'm not controlling the memory strikes."
While the other doppelgängers argue, memory Elena finally stands from her pity party and heads for the door. After fuming a bit then calming down, she realized that Katherine would give them a great advantage tonight. Still, why does she have to be such a slut? Elena just knows that the moment she walks downstairs, Katherine will be all over Stefan like she was Damon. And that will really piss Elena off. It's just a reminder that Katherine is Stefan's ex-girlfriend. Damon's too. Like she said earlier, the evil slut's had both Salvatores. Apparently, they're both good at it, which isn't surprising.
"What's surprising is that they both want me," she says before descending down the stairs.
Mid-argument, vampire Elena snaps her head to the escaping memory and catches the comment, which reminds her of those feelings of inadequacy. She never really understood why both the Salvatore brothers loved her so much. She's nothing special, except the doppelgänger thing of course. Both Damon and Stefan had spent a century with other women, but somehow they wanted her. It didn't make sense, and at times, it bothered Elena. In fact, with Damon, there was a point where she was truly worried.
"Figure it out. I don't want any more of these high school memories," human Elena says, pulling her counterpart back to the argument at hand. "I want to see the real future. Past college and everything."
Vampire Elena shakes her head, trying to explain her lack of control regarding the memories, but she stops when the world around them changes. Stefan's room melts away to reveal a small nursery decorated in pink and purple flowers. Her eyes dart across the room, and vampire Elena immediately recognizes the familiar room along with the memory. It takes her human version a moment to catch up.
"This is Bonnie's room. In her house. Why is it a nursery? Is this a memory from when we were babies? How is that possible?"
"No, this isn't…Some thing is wrong," Elena says in a panicked voice. "This isn't one of my lost memories."
"What do you mean? When is this?"
"It's after college. Bonnie's having a baby. Caroline just got married. And I…I graduated college."
"This is the future. This what I wanted to see." Human Elena smiles. "This is my life with Stefan."
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