Chapter 32
It's sunrise before Damon returns home to the boarding house. After the young and useless Caroline picked up the Gilbert clan, Damon, Ric, and Liz spent all night on clean up duty. Damon burned Elena's sheets and mattress in the backyard then helped Liz scrub the walls and surfaces in the living room. Ric cut squares around the stained carpet in both rooms and yanked it free, adding it to the burn pile outside. He'd have a contractor replace the carpet throughout the house tomorrow. Liz disposed of Katherine's body at the local crematory, and Ric and Damon dropped Lucy and her head at a local campground to be found by some unsuspecting nature enthusiast. It was a long night, and Damon is glad to be home.
Eager for a nap, he makes a bee line for his bedroom, but pauses at the cracked door. He taps it open to peer inside and finds Elena's shirt and shorts dropped in the middle of his clean room. Stepping inside, he finds her bra hanging from the banister and a towel crumpled in a pile with her underwear on the bathroom floor. Damon's lip curls at the mess until his eyes fall to vampire Elena's sleeping form. She's wrapped in his white sheets and wearing one of his long shirts.
Damon smirks and flips his shoes off before slipping into his bed beside her. Staying on top of the sheets, he stretches out onto his back and crosses his arms behind his head. It doesn't take long for Elena to shift in her sleep and roll over on to his chest. Her hand rests on his stomach, and she murmurs something that even his vampire hearing can't distinguish. Damon frowns when she doesn't wake up, but rather she spoons next to him like she belongs there. Her freshly-washed hair smells of lavender and vanilla, and he struggles to remember why having vampire Elena sired to him is such a bad idea.
"Hmm. Rise and shine, sleepy head."
Elena moans and pries her eyes open to look up into his handsome face. He expected her to jolt awake and pull away, but she smiles instead.
"Good morning." She lifts her chin as though expecting a kiss, but pauses to blink at him. "You're not my husband."
"Nope. Which begs the question, why are you in my bed?"
Elena settles back down against Damon and closes her eyes. "I couldn't sleep. This bed smells like you."
"Is that why you left your clothes all over my room?"
"Ugh, I know." She rolls her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll pick everything up, Mister Neat Freak."
"Excuse me?"
She smiles. "I wouldn't want you to have a brain aneurism because I left a towel on the floor. I don't know who's worse, you or Caroline."
"Ouch. You're being awefully mean to me after I spent all night cleaning up your mess in your house."
"I'm sorry, I should've helped with that." Elena grimaces. "How's Jenna holding up?"
He smirks. "Jenna's fine. So is your dorky brother and lovely look-a-like. They are staying at Caroline's house, who, by the way, called last night. Apparently, the demon twins used a spell to flip Stefan's switch, so who knows what chaos he'll be causing."
"That sucks. Don't worry, Caroline's pretty good at reigning him in."
"She said she tried, and it didn't work." Damon shakes his head. "We're going to have to lock him in the cellar and let him dry out. Who knows how many people he's ripped apart already. I guess, it's a good thing I have two 200-year-old time travelers who refuse to leave."
Elena sits up and peers over her shoulder at him. "I love it when you use your 'Savior of the Universe' voice."
Damon scoffs then watches Elena roll over him to slip out of bed. She shuffles throughout the room picking up the mess of clothes she'd left behind the night before. A fluttering sensation rises in Damon's stomach as he watches her stroll around in his long shirt. The sunlight from the balcony glints across her tan legs, and he savors the ease of which she smiles at him. Human Elena never smiles at him like that, but she also isn't sired to him.
Damon frowns when the fluttering in his stomach mutates into a molten ball of hot led. How could any version of him enjoy a life with Elena sired to him? He's done some horrific things, but this is a whole new level. Could he really enslave the woman he loves? Of course he could. The proof flashes him a crooked smile after dropping her clothes in the laundry basket. He'd wanted her to clean up her mess, and so she did.
I'm such a bastard. Damon recognizes the depth of his depravity. I hate the future. Screw this.
Damon jumps out of bed and hustles out the room toward the front door, leaving a bewildered Elena behind. He needs to eat someone. He needs to rip someone's throat open and drain them dry. He wants to revel in the pain he causes everyone around him and watch the future burn away.
"Damon," future Caroline calls from the other side of the house. "Stefan's on the phone."
"I don't care." He storms into the sunlight of the front yard and sets his sights on the Camaro parked in the driveway.
"He's threatening Elena. He knows that she's at my house."
Damon stops, balling his hands into fists, and his face twists into an agonizing reflection of his internal struggle. He throws his head back and bellows before storming back to Caroline, who waits at the open front door with her phone in hand.
"That was a bit dramatic. I forgot how angsty you could be," she says.
He glowers at her, but diverts his frustration toward Stefan on the phone. "How are you feeling, little brother?"
"Hatred doesn't quite describe it, Damon."
"So I've heard."
"I want revenge on you and Elena. I want you both to suffer."
"Well given that we have surpluss of Elenas right now, you'll have to be more specific. Which one are you focusing all that ripper rage onto?"
Stefan growls through the speakers. "Both, but I'll settle for the one from the future. She's the one that started all this. She's the one that betrayed me with you."
Caroline rolls her eyes. "Oh my God, the melodrama in this house. She didn't betray you. You two broke up. It's not the end of the world."
"I think your wife's getting jealous, Stefan. You should probably layout your ripper vengeance plans before she hangs up."
"Hey guys," Elena calls from downstairs. "What happened to all the blood bags? We had like a dozen here last night."
"Up here," Caroline says, and Elena pops out from around the corner.
"What's going on?"
"Stefan, did you raid the freezer last night?" Damon asks. Elena's eyes widen at the empty laughter resounding from the small speakers, but Damon frowns. "Color me surprised. I figured you'd be drinking from the tap."
"Oh, they weren't for me. They were for my new friends. I've made quiet a few."
Caroline gasps and covers her mouth, and Elena shakes her head. "You don't have to do this, Stefan. You don't have to be the ripper. You can turn your humanity back on and fight it. I've seen you do it. It wasn't easy, but you did it."
Stefan sneers. "Did I do for you, Elena? Or for Caroline?"
"You did for your family," Elena says, "even before we were a family."
When he laughs, Elena deflates, and Damon rolls his eyes.
"Family?" Stefan says. "It was family that killed me, remember?"
"Yeah, but then you ate him, so..."
"And it was family that promised me an eternity of misery."
"Because you forced me to turn..."
"And now it's my family that's going to steal my girlfriend."
"Okay, this is bullshit. You can't be mad at me for something I haven't done yet."
"We get it. You're mad at us. Tell us how you want us to fix it," Elena says. Damon frowns at her, and she shrugs.
"You can't fix it," Stefan says, his hatred echoing through the phone. "But you can suffer for it. I've left you a few presents around town. Klaus was helpful in identifying the most impactful ways to express my rage, so they might seem a bit familiar to our time travelers."
Caroline pales. "What did you do, Stefan?"
He laughs until the speakers cut out, and the three vampires are left with a dial tone.
Elena wakes to Bonnie's arm draped across her face. Sitting up in Caroline's cramped bed, she scoots the sleeping witch's arm down and squints against the morning sun that streams through the windows. Caroline pokes her head into the room, catching her mid-yawn, and smiles.
"Elena, you're awake. Great, you can help me with breakfast," she says, then grimaces. "I mean, if you're up for it. What am I thinking? You should be resting."
"It's fine. I'm happy to help. I could use the distraction." Elena returns a half-hearted smile and slips out of the bed. "Let me wash up, and I'll be there in a minute."
After Caroline disappears into the rest of the house, Elena glances around the cramped room. Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline had spent the night together because her best friends knew that Elena needed them close after her horrific experience with Stefan. They'd spent much of the night watching movies, playing board games, and anything else that kept Elena from thinking about her boy troubles or the time travelers that had changed everything. Last night had been a much needed break from the supernatural chaos that seemed to be running her life as of late. Now she has to face the world again.
Elena steps into the bathroom to clean up. Her knotted hair screams for attention, while she brushes her teeth. After combing it smooth, a ball of anxiety loosens within her. She can't control the mess that her life has turned into, but she can straighten her hair, wash her face, and present an allusion of control. When she returns every bathroom item to its rightful place, Elena feels a prick of dopamine and wonders if Caroline's control issues stem from chasing this high.
"Bonnie, it's time to wake up," Elena says as she tosses a fallen pillow back onto the bed. The witch sits up and sighs, but doesn't open her eyes. Elena giggles at her crazy bedhead, and Bonnie grunts at her.
"Five more minutes."
"Whatever you say."
Elena changes from her pajamas into her street clothes and shuffles into the kitchen to help Caroline. By the time Bonnie joins them, Caroline and Elena has a buffet of eggs, bacon, fruits, and veggies ready for consumption. Jenna and Jeremy appear at the table at about the same time, and everyone digs in.
After scarfing down two strips of bacon, Jenna watches Elena pick at her eggs. "How you are feeling?"
The teenager glances up with a faux smile and nods. "I'm okay. Besides, I should be asking you that. You're the one that just got dumped into this insanity."
"It's definitely a lot to absorb, but Jeremy let me quiz him about everything he knows last night, so I'm adjusting. I think."
"She's doing great," Jeremy says. "She even figured out that it was Katherine that she caught kissing Damon on the porch."
"I'm actually pretty relieved about that," Jenna says. "Damon's kind of..."
"A psychopath," Caroline says.
"An asshole," Jeremy says.
"I was going to say, a wild card."
Bonnie snorts. "Yeah, he's definitely crazy."
"And yet, Ric is his friend? I don't understand how that happens." Jenna picks up a piece of toast, but pauses before biting into it. "Ric said he came to town to kill Damon."
"Once Damon's under your skin, he's hard to shake." Vampire Elena's words echo in human Elena's mind. "It's Damon, not Stefan."
"Damon's not the one that tried to rip my throat out last night. He's not the one that chewed that witch's head off," she says. "I'm starting to think that all vampires are damaged goods. No offense, Caroline."
The blonde shrugs and tosses a slice of cantaloupe into her mouth. Bonnie slips her hand over Elena's and squeezes it. "You'll get through this. We'll help you."
Elena glances into her friend's bright green eyes and remembers watching her rub her pregnant belly. She can't stop the smile that takes over her face. "I know. I've seen the future."
"Yeah, what's up with that? Sheriff Forbes said that there's another you and Caroline from the future running around town?" Jeremy asks.
"Yeah." Elena shrugs. "From two hundred years in the future. They're looking for a couple of twin witches that are here to cause trouble," Bonnie says, then she catches everyone up on the latest about the time travelers. She'd spoken with future Caroline last night when she'd called to encourage Bonnie to spend some quality time with her friends, while the future vampire stayed at the boarding house for the night.
"Caroline said that one of her daughters flipped Stefan's humanity off using a spell. When she tried to get him to turn his emotions back on, he only managed to connnect with his anger. So right now, he's mad at the world and everyone in it."
"That's not good," Jenna says.
"Yeah, but it's Stefan, you guys." Caroline frowns at her friends. "What's he got be angry about? He loves Elena, and I'm sure the first time he lays eyes on her, he'll snap out of this insanity."
Elena drops her gaze to the food on her plate and pushes it around with her fork. She doesn't want to tell them the truth. At least, she thinks it's the truth. She witnessed several of her counterpart's memories last night, and it's hard to keep track of everything since none of it was within context. Suffering from blood loss toward the end of the night, didn't help things.
"I think he attacked me in the future too," she says, and everyone stops eating to look at her. "The memory strikes that Bonnie mentioned. The other me and I used them to see her lost memories. We haven't gone through them all, but I've seen a lot of the future."
"That is so cool," Jeremy says, and Jenna smacks him on the arm.
"It's not really," Elena says. "I wanted to see the future so I could keep you guys safe from the bad guys, but it's hard to figure what's going on in each memory. It's hard to put it all in the right order."
"Maybe you should write it down," Bonnie says.
"Yeah, we could write down everything you remember and assemble it on a timeline." Caroline jumps up from the table. "We'll need index cards, sticky notes, and markers."
Bonnie and Elena laugh at their friends excitement as she hustles for the supplies. When Jenna's phone pings, she finds a text from Alaric.
"Looks like the contractor needs to be let into the house." She points at Jeremy. "Come on, I'll drop you at school afterwards."
"Seriously? I think there's more important things going on right now."
"You should go, Jeremy," Elena says between bites. "We're going to be a little late, but we're going too."
Caroline stops in the hallways with an armful of school supplies. "We are?"
"Yes." Bonnie nods. "We can't stop our lives everytime something crazy happens. Otherwise, we'd never graduate."
"I'm a terrible guardian for saying this, but I think it's okay to skip school everyone once in a while." Jenna walks her dishes to the sink and sets them down. "Especially, when a 150-year-old vampire is roaming around town without his humanity."
Elena nods. "Let's make this timeline, then we'll talk about school."
Jenna and Jeremy bid farewell, and the girls dive into creating a timeline from every tidbit of information Elena can remember from the time traveling vampires and the memory strikes.
An hour later, Elena peers over a cup of coffee at the wall in Caroline's living room, which is covered in sticky notes and index cards. They'd pinned each note in its appropriate place according to the line drawn in dark marker across the painted sheet rock.
"Are you sure your mom is okay with us drawing on the wall?" Bonnie asks from the long couch that they'd scooted against the window.
"Probably not, but she still feels guilty for not realizing that I've been dead for over a week," Caroline says then shrugs. "Plus, she was talking about repainting this room anyway."
Elena ignores the chatter and stares at the timeline. From Damon compelling away their initial meeting on the road to Stefan's attack to the fight with Damon on the night she turned into a vampire to Bonnie's pregnancy to Jeremy's wedding to playing with 3-year-old versions of Caroline's kids, it's all there on the wall. She glances at several sticky notes placed above the timeline with questions marks.
"We still don't know when Damon and Bonnie get trapped in the prison world, how and when Stefan gets trapped in the quarry, why Damon was so mad at me after I turned into a vampire, and who Caroline marries," she says.
"It's obvious why Damon is mad you that night." Caroline points at several cards on the wall. "Look, he spends months protecting you from Stefan, tells you that he loves you, then talks about bad choice you made right when you get back together with Stefan? Duh, you chose Stefan over him like any sane person, and he's a sore loser."
"Do you think I'd really consider being with Damon after being with Stefan? I'm not Katherine. I'd like to think that I wouldn't do that."
"Elena, you're human. You can't always control how you feel about people, and Damon can be pretty persuasive. Trust me. I know," Caroline says.
"I'm more worried about spending four months trapped with him." Bonnie sneers at the timeline. "I can't see any universe where I become his friend instead of killing him."
Elena chuckles. "I saw it with my own eyes, Bonnie."
"I still can't believe you end up with Matt." Caroline glares at the note. "And I start dating Tyler? Oh God, I hope that's not who I marry."
"I don't think so." Elena shakes her head. "Who ever it is, he sweeps you off your feet, so I don't think you have to worry."
Caroline and Bonnie smile at the proof of their bright futures, while Elena fingers a sticky note she hadn't had the courage to add. It reads, 'Elena falls in love with Damon.' A wave of anxiety threatens to swallow her whole, so she shoves the note into her back pocket. That's not a future she's ready to face yet.
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