Author's note: Hey, everyone! Thank you for all the love. It's such a delight!
Damon sped toward the basement that haunted his memories for decades before he was forced to confront them several years ago – though it did little to lessen their impact. Even when under the murderous haze of compiled trauma when he carved out his tormentor's eyes did he fail to feel reprieve.
Elena had always told him that vengeance was never the key to relief – that the vicious acid of hate damages the vessel far more than its intended target. But how does one let go of five years of that?
And if his five years had haunted him so deeply, how much did Enzo's seventy?
He got near enough where voices would carry before he heard the tell-tale blearing pain of one of Bonnie's aneurysm attacks inside his skull. "What the hell!?" he screamed, grabbing his head.
She panted as she struggled to catch up to him, though this did nothing to lessen her worry-tinged rage. "Sorry," she panted breathlessly, pointing at his head. "I don't get it. You kept your cool when Kai had her in the school from what Alaric told me – long enough to come up with a solid plan –"
"Kai wasn't an Augustine!" Damon hotly interrupted. "You have no idea what they're capable of!"
"Yes, I do, Damon," Bonnie gently persisted, having finally caught her breath. "Enzo told me."
"Hearing about it and experiencing it are two very different things, I assure you – just like I'm certain that he left out the ugliest parts to spare you."
"Maybe," Bonnie reluctantly admitted. "But please, don't run in there in a rage. We have to think of a plan. You know this – and normally you'd be the first person to insist on this."
"I know," Damon deflated. "I was honestly just planning on scouting the area – see where he's keeping her, though I have a suspicion we both already know. He obviously figured out that she was helping us, so he's counting on us saving her."
"Exactly! So, we can't just give him what he wants," finally feeling like she was making some headway.
"But the longer she stays there, the greater the chance that he might hurt her," Damon argued, looking pained. It had been bad enough when they had both been captured during Elena's freshman year at Whitmore, but at least he was there, too – at least there was hope that he could keep her safe by making sure he was the one chosen for experiments until they both escape.
But now she was there alone. Unprotected. He should have never agreed to this. This was all his fault, Damon berated himself.
"Elena's human," Bonnie reasoned, before asking a question to which she was afraid of hearing the answer. "Do you really think he would?"
"I think that their so-called 'mission,' where they torture vampires to save human lives is just an excuse that they tell themselves. No one inflicts that kind of pain for a noble cause. Whatever their real motivations are, they don't care who gets hurt along the way," Damon spat bitterly. "I'm not saying he'll torture her right away, but he'll have no qualms about hurting or even killing her to get another subject, especially since she clearly knows his secret," he added, trying to hide the obvious fear creeping into his voice.
Bonnie nodded, the horrific implications of Damon's words making sense. "Okay. Then we go in together. I'll cloak us both."
"Deal, as long as you hurry it up."
"We have to go in at normal human speed," Bonnie stressed. "I won't be able to keep it up otherwise."
As they neared the building, Damon's entire body sagged in obvious relief. "She's okay – for now," he explained in answer to Bonnie's curious look, her non-verbal prompting. "I can hear her voice, her breathing. She doesn't sound hurt. Afraid, maybe, but at least she seems to be physically fine – for now."
As they neared their destination, Damon was able to make out some of the conversation between the two. He smiled to himself as he realized that Elena was trying to mask her fear with sarcasm – a trait she shared with him that only became magnified as they spent more time together. He could only imagine how scared she must be, resolved to get her free as quickly as possible.
"We'll get her out, Damon," Bonnie reassured, placing a comforting hand on his arm. "I promise you. He won't have the chance to hurt her."
Anna continued to play and re-play the previous night's events in her mind. So, Elena Gilbert was with Damon Salvatore now? They certainly looked cozy, from what she saw through a crack in Elena's bedroom window's blinds.
When she received a mysterious text message from a private number that told her to observe Elena's room that night for clues on freeing her mother, she expected to see Emily's grimoire or a magical artifact, not her spending the night wrapped in the elder Salvatore's arms.
Why would this even be a clue? So, Damon was so hung up on Katherine, that he was using her human doppelgänger as an obvious replacement? And she'd clearly fallen for it. Maybe he compelled her?
Except she didn't seem to be compelled – and from his dulcet tones, their obviously genuine laughter, his tender touches, he didn't seem to be faking, either. Although she had been too far away to make out their exact words, the general tone spoke volumes about obvious affection.
It didn't make any sense.
Was she playing them both, like Katherine? And if Damon really did fall for Elena, would he even care about opening the tomb anymore?
And now neither of them could be found, along with the Bennett witch that suddenly cancelled her date with Ben the night before, thwarting their plans.
She had to investigate this further. Combined with her mysterious contact, a lot of this was entirely too suspicious to ignore.
It was with this thought in mind that she found herself sitting in an armchair in the Salvatore Boarding House parlor, bourbon in hand, waiting for Stefan to return from school.
Elena forced herself to breathe deeply, rationalizing that despite her fears, Damon and Bonnie would almost certainly come to rescue her. She needed to get a hold of herself to remain even remotely useful. She kicked herself that prior to Damon's temporary death and the outright trauma of her grief, she had been able to hold herself together much better at the thought of him being in danger. Although she had nearly lost him several times prior to that, it had never felt quite as real.
She was never confronted with the actual possibility of spending a life without him.
Then during that awful summer when she felt that every fiber within her continuously died with her recollection of that night's events – that night that was seared, erased, and re-seared into her memory as the worst of her existence – she felt herself withering away and changing into someone she couldn't recognize. First, she bullied Luke – practically emotionally blackmailing him to give her psychedelic herbs to hallucinate Damon, despite how dangerous they made her – despite them nearly turning her into a killer.
And then, when faced with the very real danger she posed to others, she had Alaric rewire her psyche to hate him. And yet, a small piece always remained – even in the throes of the hypnotic compulsion, the thought of him hurt or in danger sent her into a blind panic.
And now that her memories were back, it had been even worse. Shaking off her vivid recollections of the summer and the memories and the fear that continued to haunt her, Elena channeled herself of yesteryear – the brave, irreverent, sassy girl who went toe-to-toe with an ancient, vindictive witch while spelled to be trapped in her cabin. If she could face Qetsiyah, then she could certainly stand to ruffle a few of Wes Maxfield's feathers.
"So as far as creepy mad scientists go, I'm guessing you're not very bright, since all your grand plans got thwarted by a teenage girl with a hastily-concocted cover story and access to WiFi," Elena shrugged casually, fighting to keep her tone light and irreverent, though she supposed she was probably in her mid-twenties by now – depending on whether or not she should count her magical coma years as learned experience. No need for him to know about any magical amulets. After her stunning display of vulnerability in her anxiety attack over Damon and Bonnie being in danger just minutes prior, she desperately needed to save face with her eerie captor.
And she honestly could see no better way than by riling him up, at least a little.
"What makes you think that this wasn't part of my plan, Miss Gilbert?" Wes asked, reluctant to let her get under his skin.
"I think you'll want to play it off that way to save your ego, sure, but you definitely looked surprised."
"I think you'll find that I'm very adaptable."
"Somehow I doubt that," Elena laughed. "The tie and matching sweater vest don't exactly scream 'go with the flow,' do they?"
"Your attitude's certainly changed in the last few minutes. A far cry from – what were you – practically hyperventilating in the floor of that cell just now?"
"Maybe I'm the adaptable one," she sassed, raising an eyebrow. "How did you manage to … Hulk out, anyway? You certainly don't look like a guy who spends a lot of time at a gym" she followed up, when she could see that he went back to ignoring her and studying his plans. Perhaps distracting him from analyzing the blueprints of the basement's layout and any potential hidden compartments he may have missed could prevent the ambush her subconscious so obviously feared. "Oh, come on. You're obviously not going to let me go, anyway. I know your dirty little secret."
Wes smirked, not taking his eyes off the monitor. "Clever deduction, Miss Gilbert. Perhaps the proverbial apple didn't fall far from the tree. Too bad you chose to use your clever mind to betray your species."
"At least I'm not betraying the dignity of life," Elena shot back.
"How droll. Your concern for the creatures that consider humanity no better than livestock is truly inspirational," Wes finally turned to look at her, rolling his eyes with disdain.
"They're not all like that, you know," Elena insisted, hopeful that perhaps she could change his mind – or at least distract him. "They have souls, hopes, dreams. A lot of them just want to live normal lives, without hurting anyone."
"What they have is an insatiable appetite for our blood, and a medically useful healing factor – so despite their menacing existence, they can still prove to be useful to humans. Your father understood this."
Elena bit back a comment about her father, her mind unwittingly traveling to a letter scribed by a man who learned love, tolerance, and acceptance a bit too late. "Human or vampire, I'll love you just the same." And yet, she found her entire soul to be filled with an all-encompassing warmth when she thought back on the complicated figure that was John Gilbert. But he was alive in this timeline! Perhaps she could reach him this time. Perhaps she could even –-
She shook her head, forcing those thoughts away. She had an entirely different goal that she absolutely had to focus on. "My father's not who I thought he was," she only commented cryptically, resolving not to elaborate. "So, your super-strength?" she prodded again, determinedly changing the subject.
"A new formula I've been perfecting. I've been extracting small pieces of my subject's heart. As you know, a vampire would die if the heart were to be removed – it pumps the blood throughout the body, allowing it to function like a superhuman specimen of humanity. It stands to reason, then, that –"
"These qualities would be concentrated in the heart's tissue," she finished for him morosely, starting to understand the depravity of his plan.
"Yes!" Wes confirmed excitedly. "The challenge, however, was to extract pieces of the tissue without killing my subject," Wes explained, enjoying that he finally had a chance to discuss his breakthrough, even if it was with Grayson Gilbert's traitorous daughter.
"So, you cut out parts of his heart," Elena breathed, horrified.
"The increments were quite tiny, I assure you. I couldn't risk one-two-one-four-four's life. He was entirely too useful," Wes replied matter-of-factly, while Elena's face contorted in disturbance. "I then created a serum that I injected into my own bloodstream."
"You experimented on yourself?" Elena asked, shocked, then forced herself to recover. "Equal opportunity psycho. I suppose the next dose is for me?"
"I would hardly equip you with means to escape, Miss Gilbert. Perhaps you hope me to be naïve since you seemingly tricked me once before, but I assure you that it was a fluke. But yes, this serum is only useful to a human, and I couldn't risk divulging this secret to anyone who would have power against me. Ergo, I used it on myself."
"And of course, now that I'm stuck here, you've no problem with telling me about it," Elena supplied resentfully.
Wes was about to reply when the motion detectors picked up a presence by a backdoor. The cameras showed nothing, though he suspected that Elena Gilbert's supernatural friends were finally on their way to mount their rescue mission.
He typed a code into the security system and waited.
"How are there only two entrances to this Frankenstein Freakshow?" Damon mouthed to Bonnie as they stalked past the doorway, only visible to each other thanks to the cloaking spell.
"How would I know?" she mouthed back, looking exasperated at having to make conversation while maintaining a complex spell. "Maybe you should have taken it up with your former tormentor," she gestured emphatically toward the cells.
"When? During the fire? Excuse me, Doctor Whitmore," he pantomimed. "I was wondering if you could interrupt your roasting marshmallow impression to consider installing additional entrances – for, you know, fire safety. Ooh, oops! I guess it's too late!" he widened his eyes comically, bringing a hand to his mouth in jest.
Bonnie rolled her eyes, fighting a smirk despite only being able to make out half the words, which promptly disappeared. Something felt wrong – very wrong. The air in the room was a lot dryer than before. She closed her eyes, concentrating as she reached out with her magic to try to ascertain the difference – when suddenly, they snapped open as she felt the hum of extra electricity. There were additional devices active in the room that hadn't been operative a mere half hour ago. As she stopped to gather her bearings to maintain the cloaking spell through, she noticed Damon plunging ahead.
She flailed her arms, trying to get Damon's attention, but it was too late. As soon as he stepped over the threshold of the adjoining room, a large steel trapdoor closed behind him, separating him from Bonnie, as therefore forcing him to become visible again.
As Damon rematerialized, he found the waiting form of Wes Maxfield before him, vervain gun in hand. He dodged the pellets easily, weaving around him as he made his way toward the cells to free Elena, when suddenly an inhuman force caught him from behind, and threw him into the adjacent wall.
"What the hell are you?" Damon groaned, before dislodging himself from the hole created by the force of his impact.
"The next step in the evolution of mankind," replied his opponent's snide voice, as he sped in Damon's direction, ready to continue his assault.
Damon sidestepped his punch, rolling behind the fallen table to grab the disc-shaped top to throw it at Wes' head. As the hit landed, Damon took the opportunity to deliver the killing bow, but as he reached his opponent, Wes plunged his arm into Damon's chest, grabbing his heart. Momentarily weakened by the intrusion, Damon didn't notice as Wes' other hand injected him with vervain, promptly knocking him out.
Bonnie cursed on the other side, straining to open the contraption. This was going to take a while
Perhaps for the first time ever, she was grateful for Enzo's weakened state, because he would undoubtedly wake up long before the three of them actually managed to escape the Augustine Society's clutches.
Stefan stopped abruptly in his tracks upon finding Annabelle Zhu seated entirely too comfortably on an armchair in his parlor. He inched toward her slowly, acutely aware of her superior strength, despite her petite appearance.
"Anna."
"Wow, Stefan. I see you're still an ace at spotting the obvious. Must be what draws all those doppelgänger girls in," she quipped, wanting to hurry this along. "Speaking of which, where is your Katherine look-alike?"
"What are you doing here?" he asked warily.
"I'm just hoping you'll be able to help me solve a little mystery. Usually that doesn't involve answering questions with questions."
"I'm not telling you anything about Elena until you tell me what you want with her," Stefan emphasized to Anna's elaborate eye-roll.
"Fine. I guess I'll just have to look for her myself. Say, do you think Damon's seen her?" she asked with an air of exaggerated drama. "Because I haven't seen him either. Funny that," she remarked, before swiftly exiting the grand estate. Perhaps speaking with Stefan wouldn't net any leads, but following him, now that she'd planted the idea in his head, just might.
As Damon felt the first stirrings of consciousness, the world around him began to materialize through the pounding pain of the vervain headache. Groaning, he forced himself into an upright position, as the bright lights of the basement assaulted his eyes.
He was back – back in the hellhole where he spent five of the worst years of his life, accentuated by the "D.S." carved into the wall behind him.
As his own sense of foreboding began to take hold, his mind suddenly remembered the reason he was here. Elena! Looking around frantically, he saw her curled up into a ball in the cell next to his, her knees hiding her face from view, though his heart ached when he heard her soft whimpers.
"Hey, psycho-Doogie! Did you get your medical degree from YouTube University? In case it escaped your notice, she's human!"
"Miss Gilbert is to remain in my custody until my subject is returned. She has robbed me of a vampire, so unless one-two-one-four-four comes back, she will take his place – so I suggest you cooperate and answer honestly about his whereabouts."
"You have a vampire!" He screamed, pounding on the door so hard that his knuckles bled. "Me! Now let her go!"
"Ah, two-one-oh-five-one. How does it feel to be back home?"
"Screw you," Damon growled, his usual snark quickly replaced by rage as the anxiety threatened to overwhelm him. He was back here – and what was worse, this monster clearly had no qualms about hurting Elena, despite her being human.
At least Bonnie hadn't been caught yet. She was their last hope.
"I see that you bloodsucking monsters are as eloquent as ever."
"Sorry I didn't get to work on my charm and etiquette much last time I was here, what with my tongue and eyes and other organs carved out so often. Let's switch places, and you can show me how it's done."
"You must find yourself very amusing, two-one-oh-five-one. Miss Gilbert did, too. Seems her moxie left her," Wes commented cryptically, before walking out of the room.
Growling, Damon continued punching and kicking against the lock until his knuckles bled. Bonnie couldn't come soon enough, Damon lamented, praying she wasn't caught.
As Elena's breathing became more shallow with anxiety, Damon ceased his barrage against the cell door and dropped to the ground, reaching out to her through the small window.
"Hey, Elena," he soothed. "It'll be okay. Bon-Bon is still out there, and she'll get us out. I won't let him hurt you – I promise," he emphasized, hoping that his words were true.
"Damon?" Elena finally lifted her tear-filled eyes, almost sobbing his name. "What are we doing here?"
"Did he hurt you?" he asked, bile rising in his throat at her visible distress.
"I – I don't know. I just appeared here in this cell. He described what he was going to do to me, to you – to all of us. Do they really experiment on people here? He said he's never had a female test subject before and –"
"What's the last thing you remember, Elena, before you found yourself here?" Damon asked, dreading her reply.
Elena looked at him strangely, her large brown eyes wide with fear and confusion. "We were in the cemetery. You caught Stefan and me betraying you, and you fed me your blood."
For a long moment, Damon wasn't sure that he heard her correctly. He stared at her as he felt the fibers of his heart crushing under the weight of this bombshell. This couldn't be happening. Not after everything they went through.
But the longer he stared at the clear trepidation on Elena's face – her obvious distrust of him as she refused to come nearer, wouldn't reach for his hand, refused to meet his eyes – the more the unavoidable realization struck him in his heart, shattering it entirely.
His Elena was gone – and there was no telling if she would ever be back.
Many thanks to the delightful Kriz03 for helping me with the idea for the sequence that separated Bonnie and Damon – and for basically acting as beta for this chapter. So wholeheartedly appreciated! You rock, girl!
Soooo, Elena has no recollection of anything after the S1 cemetery scene, where her future consciousness merged with her. Why? We'll find out in the next chapter, but that doesn't mean that the matter is resolved. :D
As mentioned previously, the Augustine Society is not a major villain in this story. They'll be dealt with soon enough – but this is kind of a sneak preview of what's coming in With Great Power, where they take center stage. We already saw a scene in which Enzo is protectively holding his heart, so this is a little hint of what's to come in that story. I like to set all my stories in the same multiverse. :D
Look, I have no idea why I have everyone make fun of Steffie. I just can't help myself, apparently.
Much love to you, awesome TVD fanfic community – especially, Kriz03, scarlett2112, and Florencia7. You're all delightful.
I don't want to be super-mean and keep you all hanging, since this is kind of a massive cliffhanger, so I'll endeavor to get the next chapter up sometime this weekend!
Until then, much love and hugs. Peace and empathy. Be good to yourselves and each other. Please remember that you matter, so treat yourself accordingly. :D