Chapter 30
It doesn't take Damon long to find Elena. She wasn't trying to hide her tracks when she fled. She just wanted as much distance as possible between her and her zombie family. She's stomping through the woods at a human's pace when he finds her. She forces her way through the trees, stumbling blindly through the thick foliage, and Damon follows after her.
Images of her past flood Elena's mind, and she can do nothing but brace against them. She refuses to let herself enjoy the memories of toddlers running through her house, Caroline singing beautiful but inappropriate lullabies, Stephan worrying about the girls not wearing safety helmets on their mountain bikes, and Damon complaining about boys paying too much attention to the girls. As much as she yearns to wrap her psyche in the warmth and love of the wonderful memories, she doesn't. She slaps them away, afraid of being burned again. Afraid of the horrific, suffocating pain of loss. Because with good memories, come the bad.
All the memories, good and bad, that she locked behind a brick wall in her mind, she can feel them pressing against the barrier, forcing one tiny brick to shutter and shift aside. She has to stop it. She can't handle the pain. She'll crumble under the weight of the emotional onslaught and flip her switch to save herself, and her husband would never forgive her. Elena knows all of this with a bone-chilling certainty.
So she runs. She runs through the woods of Mystic Falls, brushing past branches and leaves that leave temporary scratches across her bare legs. Elena doesn't care about the external pain, and Damon notices.
"Elena," he calls as he follows at her heels.
"I'm not going back."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm not going back."
She steps out of the woods into a clearing that leads to the quarry and breaks into a run. Damon stares at her in utter confusion. Has the woman lost her mind? When she stops at the edge of the cliff, he vamp speeds to her side and reaches for her, but she falls to her knees.
"Elena, what's wrong?"
"I won't go back, Damon. Please don't make me go back," she says, looking up at him. The pain and loss in her tear swollen eyes stabs at Damon. This may not be his Elena, but she's still Elena, and he can't bare to see her in pain. So he does the only thing he can think to do that might soothe her. He invokes the sire bond.
"Elena." He kneels down next to her and cups her face with his hands. "I want you to calm down and tell me what's wrong."
Elena closes her eyes at his touch and leans into him. He's like a cool surface against her feverish skin. As always, her husband's mere presence helps to sooth her emotional pain. Everything seems bearable now, and she knows what to do. She knows how to pull back all the loss and sorrow threatening to overwhelm her. She's figured out a way to put the brick back in its place within her mental wall.
Elena opens her eyes to find the calming waves of the ocean as they spray sea foam into the air only a few feet away. The sand melts around her feet and soups in between her wiggling toes. A gust of wind swirls her short hair into a chaotic dance and tugs along the smell of salt and fish. She takes a deep, unhindered breath and smiles at the bright sundress draping her small form.
"Where are we?" Damon asks, and Elena jumps.
"What are you doing here?"
Damon raises his eyebrows and splays his hands in a telling motion. "Hey, this is your dream, not mine."
Elena blushes at her mistake. A vampire her age should know better, but she doesn't perform mind tricks often. It's not one of her favorite vampiric abilities.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring you here. I guess it's just habit."
Damon watches Elena fidget under his scrutiny, then she takes a breath and shakes off the mistake. She transforms from an embarrassed teenager into a confident woman taking a much-needed break at the edge of the ocean. Which is all the more amazing considering she was a blubbering, panicking mess about two seconds before.
Elena steps into the ocean water deep enough to wet her calves and stares out over the horizon. She savors the feel of the tide pulling and pushing against her body. With every tug, she feels the negative energy raging against her mental barriers slip away with the ocean water. If only she could figure out how to refill her voids with something pleasant, but that would mean facing everything she's worked so hard to avoid.
Grimacing at the feel and taste of salt water, Damon steps up beside her in the water. Apparently, Elena's subconscious prefers him bare chested and wearing only swim trunks. Who is he to argue?
He grasps her hand in his. "Elena, I want you to tell me what you're feeling."
Surprised again, this time by Damon's question, Elena shifts to meet his gaze. Damon doesn't like discussing emotions and feelings. Correction, he doesn't like discussing his own emotions.
Of course he wants to know why I freaked out at the sight of my long lost family. Not to mention me dragging him into my mental hideout. Healthy, Elena. Real healthy.
But there's something odd about Damon's question. Something that tugs at the back of her mind, but she can't quiet put her finger on it.
"I'm okay."
"Are you sure? You were…"
"This place helps," Elena says. "I don't know why, but it…it just helps. It's been like that since we found it."
Elena looks down at the water with a content smile and exhales. Damon has so many questions, but he can tell that she isn't done speaking, so he waits. She leans down to pull a small seashell from the shallow water.
"Whenever things went…wrong," Elena flisp the shell over, "and we needed time away from the world. Or we just needed time to…heal…I guess. We'd come here."
"We?"
"You and I," she says. "We built a house."
When Elena looks at him, Damon is stunned by the intense passion in her eyes. He forgets how to breath and soaks up her attention and love like a dehydrated sponge. When her eyes shift past him and over his shoulder, his lungs expand and oxygen to reaches his brain again. And he remembers the bitter truth of her love, the dark cloud that rains on his parade. The sire bond.
With a sullen expression, Damon turns to see what's caught Elena's eye and finds a large cabin on the beach. A single story abode with white paint and a small covered patio, the house is flooded with light from the morning sun through giant windows. A small staircase leads to the beach, where a few chairs and a giant umbrella await the couple.
Damon silently admits that it's a beautiful place in which to escape from the world, but it doesn't seem like his style. He usually likes to escape to bars and loud music and sex. Lots of crazy, hot sex.
"Not really what I imagined for retirement," Damon says with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sure it's very relaxing and boring."
"We find ways to entertain each other." Elena fights a smile as she glances at him. "There's also a town about ten minutes South of here that's home to a local university. It's considered the party school of New Zealand."
Damon smirks. It seems they've carved out a nice little nest here in…New Zealand, apparently. "Sounds delicious."
Elena giggles and throws her arms up in the air to twirl in the sand. Her sundress flourishes around her, and Damon enjoys the view of her tan legs peeking out from under the dress. She stops dancing long enough to collapse into one of the sunbathing chairs and stretches out to enjoy the warm sun. Damon follows, taking the chair next to her, and stares out over the ocean.
He can see why Elena considers this her safe space. There's just something about the sound of the waves and smell of sea salt that soothes the soul. But why did she need to escape to this fantasy world? Why did Elena run away? As the sun sets beyond the horizon, basking the coast into an orange-red glow, Damon looks at Elena.
"I want you to tell me why you ran away."
Elena's attention snaps back to her faux husband, and she grimaces at the question. Of course he wants to know why, but the question sets her on edge for reasons she doesn't understand.
"I don't want to see my family, Damon."
"Why? It's been two hundred years. Why in this ever-more crazy world would you not want to see your family? Your brother?"
"Like you're one to talk? You went fifty years without speaking to Stefan."
"Yeah, but he wasn't dead," Damon says with a shrug. "Just a douche."
Elena rolls her eyes at the typical Damon response, then she tries to put to words everything she's feeling.
"Jeremy and Ric live long full lives, and I would give anything to see them again. But that wasn't them at the house. That was…"
"That was Jeremy and Ric," Damon says. "They're real, and they're here. They haven't lived through everything that they're apparently going to experience, but they are still Jeremy and Ric. Right?"
Elena isn't sure if Damon is trying to convince her or himself. She wants to agree with him, but it's hard to enjoy something you know will eventually be ripped away. Why should she emotionally invest in this Jeremy and Ric when she'll have to leave them behind when she returns home? It's not worth the pain.
"I don't know, Damon. I just know that it hurts.".
Damon can see the moisture in her eyes as he brushes a strand of her brunette hair from her eyes. Elena leans her face against his hand and breaths in the familiar smell of her lover. In the distance, the sun is nearly gone, and the night sky peeks through the clouds.
"What about Jenna? You didn't mention her." Elena jerks away from Damon as though he threw ice water in her face. "What? What's wrong, Elena?"
The wind picks up, and the waves grow larger and more violent as Elena hunches in on herself. She gathers her knees under her chin and wraps her arms around her legs. Tears stream down her face, and she sobs. Damon stands up, using his hands to protect his face from the salty wind. He glances around the beach as the light furniture blows away. Lightening streaks the dark sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder, and Damon tastes the rain in the air moments before the bottom falls out.
"Elena, stop this," he cries, but she doesn't hear him. Her face is buried in her arms, and she convulses with painful sobs.
Damon searches along the beach to escape from the rain but finds nothing. He looks up the stairs toward their New Zealand home and notices a brick wall to the left of the house. He's certain that it wasn't there before. Following his instincts, Damon races toward the wall. As he gets closer, the night darkens and the storm rages stronger. When he stands before the red brick, Damon glances back toward Elena to find her, the house, and the beach way off in the distance. She weeps into her knees, unaware of his departure.
Returning his attention to the mystery wall, Damon examines the odd structure and something about it feels familiar. The wall doesn't seem to end; rather, each end extends into forever in opposite directions. Looking closer, he finds words written in black. Each red brick has something different written on it. One big brick reads "parents" and several smaller bricks surrounding it have different memories and emotions written on them, such as "Dad taught me how to ride a bike," "Mom styled my hair for my first school dance," "Mom and Dad let me sleep with them after I had a bad dream," and "Mom taught me how to listen to my heart."
Then Damon notices the cracks littered throughout the wall. Some are small nicks in a single brick, others scrap the surface of several stones, and a handful of cracks crumbled the entire brick, leaving only fragments from which to read. One brick protrudes a few inches from the rest of the wall. He wipes away the muddy gravel caked across the stone and pauses in surprise when he reads what it says, "Jenna died."
With a frown, Damon tugs the brick free, only to have it fall into three pieces in his hands. He wipes the rain from his eyes and examines the damaged stone in the dark. He re-assembles the three fragments then turns it over to find more writing on the backside of the wall, "Mandy."
Who the hell is Mandy? Damon wonders. Why is she written on the other side of the wall? What else is back there?
The reason the wall feels familiar hits him like a ton of bricks, and he's surprised that he didn't recognize it sooner. Damon has a wall in the back of his mind too, although he hopes his wall is in better shape. Over the years, he hid his most heinous crimes and experiences behind it. Things like his expired feelings for Katherine, leaving his best friend behind to burn to death, killing a pregnant woman who happened to be his great-something niece-in-law, killing his brother's best friend, and countless other memories that only serve to dig up horrible emotions like guilt and remorse. Oh man, does he hope his wall his holding up better than Elena's.
He glances back to her, sitting on the beach, and squints against the rain and wind as lightening illuminates the sky. He spots Elena's silhouette rocking back and forth in her chair, and he wonders at her sanity. Had two hundred years with Damon corrupted her mental and emotional health? Has he taught her to build and utilize this wall to hide from the memories and experiences she wanted to avoid? Will he be reduced to the same fate if he continues to avoid the guilt and shame of his past?
Damon eyes the cracks and crumbling bricks that threaten to destabilize Elena's wall. Not knowing what else to do, he shoves the repaired brick back into place, and like a rubber band, he snaps back to reality. He sits on the edge of the quarry alongside Elena, who stares at him with her mouth agape.
"What did you do?" he asks.
"I…I don't know," he says. "Do you feel better?"
She pauses to consider the question then smiles. "Yeah, I do."
He returns the smile, but Damon can't help but wonder what Elena could possibly have hidden behind her wall. He realizes that this version of Elena is damaged. Really damaged. Maybe as damaged as him. Is that really the life he wants for his Elena? Is this just the result of 200 years of living? Is everyone a little insane after surviving that long? Or has Damon somehow damaged Elena over the years? Has he chipped away her sanity, one brick at a time?
Then a familiar and cold truth sinks into his bones as he realizes the cause of Elena's mental issues. The sire bond.
On the other side of town, in the midst of Mystic Falls' surrounding forest, Stefan awakens from his temporary death. Lying on his back in the dirt, he inhales, and as oxygen fills his lungs the memory of tonight slams into him. His chest tightens but, he doesn't move, opting to stare up into the surrounding foliage as he replays the devastating turn of events in his mind. Along with consciousness, came the suffocating need to feed and the guilt of hurting the woman he loves. Stefan tries to reign in his thirst. He tries to use the immeasurable guilt to weigh down his endless hunger, but as always, it's a arduous battle. On the outside, he looks like a man lying on the ground and brooding at the sky above.
"What are you doing?" Jo asks from several feet away, and Stefan leaps to his feet in surprise. Adrenaline pumps through his veins, dragging along his blood-thirst, which demands fulfillment, and he complies. He launches at the twin witches with a ferocious growl, but after two strides, he stumbles to his knees. He screams at the sensation of his ribs and spine crumbling under an invisible force.
"Careful," Jo says to her sister. "He's too young to survive much of this."
"Perhaps we should stick with the aneurisms then," Lizzie says and drops her magic wielding hand. As the pain stops, Stefan sags to his hands and knees among the dirt and leaves of the forest ground.
"We are not food," Lizzie says. "We're vampires too. Remember?"
Jo smirks. "Sort of."
"I don't care." Stefan lifts his head to meet Lizzie's blue gaze. "This is your fault. None of this would've happened if you hadn't shown up. She'd still be…"
"Alive," Lizzie offers when Stefan can't seem to finish his sentence, then she smiles coldly. "We didn't touch her. We didn't hurt her. We aren't the ones that betrayed her trust. We aren't the ones that tore into her. We didn't rip out…"
"Stop." Tears swim in his stormy green eyes.
"I know how much it hurts to kill a loved one," Lizzie says. "The guilt, the pain, the loss. All of it can consume you if you let it, but you don't have to. It just takes one little…pop, and it's all gone."
"No." Stefan shakes his head. He'd love nothing more than to disappear into the abyss of his humanity switch, but he can't. He's a ripper, and without his humanity, he'd destroy countless lives. He won't do that again. Never again, even if he has to live with the guilt of killing the woman he loves. It's a bone-crushing guilt that sucks the air from his lungs, still he says, "No, I can't."
"Why? It's so much easier this way. Without those pesky emotions, you can do what needs to be done," Jo says. "Like unleashing the Ripper of Monterey."
Stefan looks at the straight-laced twin in surprise. "That's why you're here? You want me to flip my switch and terrorize Mystic Falls? Why?"
"No, we want you to terrorize the Salvatores."
Stefan frowns because her statement doesn't make sense. He and Damon are the Salvatores. If they want him to fight with his brother, why didn't they just say Damon? Why 'the Salvatores' like there's more than two of them?
Life isn't perfect. We've all had our ups and downs, and for the Salvatore clan, it's been mostly up.
Stefan flinches at the memory of Elena's words from the backseat of the SUV. At the time, he thought it meant that he had a future with his girlfriend. He envisioned them getting married and her taking his name. But that's not what it meant. It wasn't his name that Elena took in marriage.
"You mean Damon and Elena."
Jo smirks. "Among others. It looks like you're finally catching on. I'm a little surprise myself. We never knew about this awkward little triangle."
"It's almost incestuous," Lizzie says with a disgusted sneer. "She's your future sister-in-law."
"No, she loves me." Stefan grimaces. "Loved me."
"She's still alive, you know."
Stefan snaps his head up. "What? You said…"
"I lied. Uncle Damon showed up just in time to save her."
Stefan inhales a liberating breath at the joyous news and silently thanks his brother for stepping up. His struggle against his blood-thirst seems manageable knowing Elena still lives in the world.
"Of course he saved her. Damon loves Elena, and she loves him," Jo flashes a sly glance at her sister.
"It's really amazing how much Elena looks like Katherine. Acts like her too. Although, not your Elena. She seems so sweet and earnest, nothing like our Elena. She's cold and cruel in the future. What do you think causes someone to change that much?"
"Shut up." Stefan tries to climb to his feet only to have Lizzie whammy his brain. After a few groans of pain from her faux father, she releases her magical hold on him.
"Don't you want pay back for the pain she's going to cause you? She's going to break your heart. She's going to choose Damon. Especially now that you've nearly killed her," Jo says.
Stefan growls at them. "I won't do your dirty work."
"That's a shame," Jo says as she crouches to his level. "Now, we have to do this the hard way."
Jo presses a hand to Stefan's forehead and mutters a powerful spell as he struggles against invisible binds. He groans at the sensation of her fingers raking across his mind, then he screams when she digs her fingers into something at the back of his consciousness. Jo yanks her hand away from Stefan as she yells the final incantation.
Stefan jerks as though attached to Jo's hand by an invisible strand, then he slumps back into the dirt like a puppet with his strings cut. Caroline vamp speeds to stop several feet from her family and squeals with angst.
"What did you do to him?"
"I freed him, Mother," Jo says, backing away from Stefan as he climbs to his feet. "I freed the Ripper of Monterey."
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