Plan B - Part 2

"You have got to be shitting me right now," Damon blurted out, blinking his eyes in disbelief. He even rubbed his eyes with closed fists and looked towards Stefan. His baby brother's facial expressions didn't change at all, which was not boding well. "Katherine's with Mason Lockwood?"

"When Zach and Bonnie came back in, she bumped into him. I ran into her later and she immediately let loose all the info," Stefan explained, running a hand through his hair. "We missed it. He got into town right after she did. It makes perfect sense."

"I know, but Mason Lockwood?" Damon questioned, disgust trickling into his voice. "Werewolf thing aside, the guy is a surfer and is, to my knowledge, actively dating Kelly LeBlanc. Katherine may be a bitch, I will forever defend that, but she cares about Victoria and Victoria cares about Kelly. Messing around with Mason would break both of their hearts, which would hurt Katherine in the end. She's got to be using him. She has to be."

"Using him for what?" Stefan asked, confused. "What could she possibly want?"

"You missed the powwow this morning," Damon grunted, rolling his eyes. "Mason Lockwood's looking for a moonstone that allegedly can break the full moon werewolf curse. Maybe Katherine wants it as well."

"Why?"

Damon shrugged. "Well...no idea. That's the beauty of Katherine; she's always up to something."

Stefan groaned but nodded in agreeance. "So, how are we gonna find this moonstone?"

"Well, since Kelly-Beans is still at home, sicker than a dog, and our lovely Seer doesn't remember that she is a Seer," Damon bemoaned. "Jeremy is getting it from Tyler."

Stefan's eyes narrowed and he growled, "Why would you involve Jeremy?" Stefan turned to stride away, but not before punching Damon in the arm.

Damon hissed out, "He's playing Indiana Jones. He involved himself, and we already got a whole crew of protection surrounding any and all humans involved in our little escapades."

Just then, Jeremy's voice filtered into Damon's ears and he and Stefan both paused, both turning their heads subtly so Jeremy's voice could be heard loud and clear. "Hey, man."

"Hey!" Tyler replied back. "I heard about what happened to Victoria. That sucks, man."

"Yeah," Jeremy agreed, sounding like he was swallowing. "I don't really know how to process it, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

There was a moment of awkward silence that made Damon roll his eyes. Then, Jeremy cleared his throat and rasped, "Hey, so I did a little research on that stone you showed me."

"What?" Tyler questioned, sounding confused. "Why?"

"I don't know. Call it curiosity or boredom."

"What did it say?"

Jeremy's voice sounded more excited than before (did the thought of research actually appeal to the Baby Gilbert? That was something for Damon to look into; Zach could always use more research buddies). "Well, it turns out that it's part of this Aztec legend but I want to make sure it's the same kind of stone. You think I could check it out again?"

Tyler made a pained noise in the back of his throat. "Sorry, man, nope. I gave the stone to my uncle."

Jeremy made a confused noise. "Why did you do that? You were really interested in it."

"Because I'm done with anything labelling stuff legends and curses. I don't want anything to do with it, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah sure."

Damon rolled his eyes and looked at Stefan with a pissed off demeanor. "Fantastic. Time to go to Plan B."

Stefan's eyes crinkled in confusion. "We have a Plan B?"

"You bet your ass we do," Damon hummed. Louder, he shouted, "Bonnie!" and marched off.

He found the youngest Bennett witch chatting and giggling with Victoria. His undead heart panged at that and he gave Victoria a tense smile as he commented how he needed to steal Bonnie away from a minute. Victoria gave a little pout and folded her arms across her chest, mumbling under her breath about how everyone kept stealing Bonnie away from her that day.

He would have to look into that later.

Damon played nice with Bonnie as he more-or-less dragged the younger girl out and away from the mansion, Stefan trailing behind the pair like a lost little puppy.

They made it to the porch before Bonnie ripped her arm out of Damon's grasp, flipping around to glare at him. "Okay. This is as far as I go."

Damon just scoffed out, "Okay." He folded his arms across his chest.

Bonnie folded her arms across her chest as well, cocking a hip out as she raised an eyebrow at Damon. "What do you want?"

"A favor."

"Like that's gonna happen," Bonnie snorted, shaking her head.

"So predictable," Damon teased, pursing his lips angrily.

Stefan stepped in (the ever noble brother) and gave Bonnie some bonified puppy dog eyes. "I know how you feel about helping us out right now, but -"

"- But nothing, Stefan!" Bonnie shot back, glaring at Stefan. Stefan took a step back at how lethal her words sounded and even Damon raised an eyebrow in shock. "You don't know how I feel about this. None of you do. I am the last person to know anything. Everything. I didn't know what happened to Victoria last night, that she had been shot by Caroline's mom hours beforehand, or that Zach was alive, until Elena decided to grace me with her presence today and tell me everything that I had been missing out on. I thought I was a part of this supernatural collective or whatever the hell we have had going on here, but everyone keeps butting me out. So no, Stefan, you don't know how I feel with helping you out -!"

"- Down, girl," Damon interrupted, his brow furrowing in tension. He took a step towards Bonnie, noting the way that she tensed up. He didn't take his eyes off of her as he commented to Stefan, "Go fill Elena in on everything."

"Can you play nice, please?" Stefan pleaded as it sounded like he took steps away.

"I'm, surprisingly, not the one that Bonnie's pissed off at this time," Damon retorted blankly. "Just go."

Stefan seemed to pause, but after a few seconds of silence, Damon could hear his footsteps march off.

Damon turned away from Bonnie and took a seat down onto the steps of the porch. He sat in silence, not moving, not making a sound until Bonnie eventually turned to sit down beside him. Damon waited until she had stopped fidgeting next to him before he asked honestly, "Do you want to be involved in this seriously or do you want to be left out?"

"Choose your next words carefully, Damon," Bonnie warned him. She rested her elbows onto her knees, and from the corner of his eye, Damon could see Bonnie glaring down the driveway. "You don't know me, so don't pretend to."

Damon's next words came out without his consent. "Then tell me about yourself."

That statement seemed to shock both him and Bonnie, because they both jolted their heads to the side to look at each other incredulously. Bonnie swallowed heavily and stammered, "W-What?"

"Tell me about yourself," Damon echoed, blinking in shock. Was he actually being...considerate? To Judgey? Geez, he really was becoming a better person thanks to Victoria. "You share something with me about yourself that I don't know, something that'll explain why I should choose my next words carefully, and I'll share something with you."

Bonnie was silent, her lips pressed into a sharp line, before she hissed out, "If I spill my secrets and then you retaliate with your favorite color, I will magically snap your neck before you can even disappear."

"Deal," Damon agreed, nodding his head. He hadn't even considered just telling Bonnie his favorite color, although he was semi-tempted to do so now, regardless of the consequences. "Now, Bon-Bon -"

"- Please don't call me that -"

"- Why are you so against being left out of things?"

Bonnie snorted. "Besides the obvious that it sucks to be left out of things that you felt like you were a major factor in?" She paused, taking a deep breath, before she blurted out, "My mom abandoned me and my dad when I was a kid, my dad can barely take care of himself, let alone me, and my grandmother was murdered for being a racist asshole even though she took care of me most of my life." Her eyes widened in horror and she quickly turned away from Damon, but Damon could see her cheeks darkening as she blushed in embarrassment. "So, I-I guess, call it trauma for the reason why I don't like being left out."

Damon really couldn't make a comment.

He knew that the Bennett family in modern day and age wasn't sunshine and roses, and he had been there for when Victoria stabbed the living daylights out of Sheila Bennett, but he hadn't thought it would have been so...similar to his history.

Damon just said in a breath, "Damn, Bon-Bon, guess the two of us are a lot more alike then what we once thought." Bonnie's neck snapped to the side as she looked at him in shock, but he skillfully ignored it and said, for his side of the confessing, "Katherine really screwed me up when it comes to romantic relationships. I don't trust women as much as I appear to. No offense, but y'all can be assholes when you want to be." Bonnie just shrugged, but seemed to understand what he was saying. "The reason Victoria managed to worm her way into my heart...it has multiple factors. One, she died to protect me, even though the two of us weren't really close. Two, she always believed, even when I was a dick, that I could be the hero of my own story. Three..." Damon trailed off, feeling his heart pang deep inside of his chest. "Three, she made me want to be a better person."

"Damn it, Damon," Bonnie whispered, shaking her head. "Come on, don't go making me feel sorry for you. We had a really good thing going here."

Damon waved his hand dismissively at her. "Don't want your pity, Bon-Bon. We had a deal, and we both kept our ends of the bargain. Now, back to business." He shook himself for extra measure before completely redirecting the conversation back onto some more...ahem...pressing matters, "Since you're the one that linked Mason with Katherine, we finally have an opportunity to get an upper hand on both of them, so just...hear me out, okay?" Bonnie gave a little tentative nod. "Great. All you have to do is touch Mason Lockwood again to see if he gave Katherine the moonstone."

Bonnie let out a frustrated sigh and pressed a hand against her temple. "My visions don't work like that. I don't get to ask questions."

"How inconvenient, you've pointed out," Damon relented. "Although, let's talk about that little witchy juju thing you do with me -"

"- That sounds really messed up when you state it like that, Damon -"

"- Cute that you think of me that way, but I'm good, Bon-Bon. You know the juju I'm talking about: the fun one where my brain bursts into flames? What is that?"

Bonnie took her hand off of her temple and she moved to recline back against the porch steps. Damon moved too, mirroring her. "That's me giving you an aneurysm -"

"- Gesundheit -"

"- Your blood vessels go pop, but you heal quickly; so, I do it over and over again," Bonnie finished, giving Damon a flat look.

"Is it vampire-specific?"

"It'd work on anyone with a supernatural healing ability," Bonnie reasoned, cocking her head to one side as her eyes squinted. She looked like she was deeply processing the question. "Probably not Victoria, because she only heals after dying, but if you could get shot and walk it off, probably then."

"Good. Good, good," Damon hummed to himself, nodding his head. That was some very good news indeed.

Bonnie seemed to know where his line of thought was heading, though, because she swatted his shoulder. "Damon, I'm not gonna help you hurt him."

"Well, think of it this way, Bon-Bon," Damon grunted as he pushed himself back into an upright seated position. "Mason Lockwood's a werewolf, Katherine's evil. Katherine and Mason have kissed, which means that he, in some part, cheated on Kelly with Katherine. They're the bad guys. We don't have time to play mortality police, alright? We can also put it in another way if this helps: they are a threat to all vampires, which includes Caroline. Mason has tried to actively kill Victoria, although I will admit, Katherine probably won't let that happen, but Katherine also hates Elena, so do with that information what you will."

Bonnie gritted her teeth, sucking in a sharp breath through her teeth. She let it out with a harsh breath and just nodded her head. "Fine. I'll help, but I'm not going to be happy about it."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Care-Bear, Lizzle, Ms. G, we're home!" Damon called out as he marched in, a limp Mason Lockwood over his shoulder. He made his way into the living room, navigating the hallway so he didn't accidentally knock something over that would upset Ms. Gibbons.

Ms. Gibbons stuck her head out of the dining room, took one look at Damon with an unconscious body over his shoulder, and just sighed. "I assume I can't persuade you to torture in the actual basement?"

"Don't want to scare Liz, Ms. G," Damon explained, giving his shoulders a little shrug. "What can you do?"

"Not torture people on my freshly washed carpets, for one thing," Ms. Gibbons grumbled as she walked back into the dining room. She emerged with one of the more rickety looking dining room chairs, taking her sweet time to waddle over to the main portion of the living room. She dropped it down onto the ground and gave Damon a look. "Please refrain from a large massacre. Or blood. Do you know how hard it is to get bloodstains out of good sheets?"

"Not like we have multiple magic users who could just magic the blood out," Damon suggested as Bonnie came filing into the boarding house, Mason's bag draped over her shoulder.

"We aren't maids, Damon," Bonnie sniffed, glaring at Damon as she pushed past him. Bonnie tossed Mason's bag onto one of the sofas and then plopped down onto it, letting out a groan now that she was off her feet.

Damon rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath, "Are all women out to get me today or what?" before he carefully (read: haphazardly) tossed Mason into the dining room chair that Ms. Gibbons had supplied.

"Here's his bag. As requested," Bonnie yawned, gesturing towards Mason's bag sitting next to her on the couch.

"Mmkay," Damon said, reaching over to nab one of the blankets that Ms. Gibbons had just randomly produced (maybe she was a magic user too, but like a magic housekeeper). "Grab that corner," Damon added, pointing to one of the corners for Bonnie to grab.

Bonnie, whose eyes had fluttered shut, peeked one open and raised an eyebrow at Damon. "Why are we doing this?"

"Because Ms. Gibbons doesn't want to stain the freshly-washed carpets," Damon answered, sending a faux-cheesy smile to Ms. Gibbons.

Ms. Gibbons rolled her eyes at Damon, but there was a fondness hidden away in them before she turned around and left back for the dining room (to finish whatever she had started, so it seemed).

Bonnie pulled herself up and Damon tossed one of the blanket corners to her. Together, the two spread out the blanket over the "freshly-washed carpets" (Ms. Gibbons must have suspected something like this was going to happen because it was only then that Damon noticed the coffee table and the sofas were pushed farther back than usual). The two of them worked together in silence, moving about in sync.

"He's not gonna be out much longer," Bonnie warned him, sneaking a glance towards the unconscious werewolf on the chair.

Damon grabbed the bag that Bonnie had tossed onto the couch, opening it up to sneak a peek inside of it. His eyes widened in disbelief and his brow furrowed as he stuck his hand into the bag, grabbing onto the "hidden treasure" underneath and he pulled out thick, heavy-duty chains that were kept hidden inside of the bag. "You've been working out, Judgey? These are no joke." He sent Mason a disgusted look. "Looks like this guy's used to being tied up." He tilted his head in confusion as Bonnie took a step towards Mason and grabbed his limp head in her hands. "What are you doing?"

"You're looking for the moonstone," Bonnie explained, not bothering to look over her shoulder at him. "I'm trying to help you find it."

"Oh, good, yeah," Damon relented, focusing on pulling out the rest of the chains from the backpack (holy hell, how did Bonnie manage to throw this bag over her shoulder?). He could use them for tying up Mason, since even the werewolf in question seemed confident in their ability to hold him hostage. "Find out if he gave it to Katherine, and find out where she is. And find out what they're gonna do with it once they get it."

"In the words of Victoria LeBlanc, in a story where she told me she said these exact words to one of you Salvatore brothers, I'm not a Magic Eight Ball, Damon," Bonnie retorted, but her words seemed to die out.

Damon glanced over at her, pausing in his activities. Bonnie's eyelids had fluttered shut and her hands were twitching slightly. Concern soaked into Damon. He set down the chains onto the couch and took a step towards Bonnie. "Bonnie? You okay?"

"Somewhere small," Bonnie whispered, her words clipped and concise, but edging on worried. "Dark. There's water."

"Like a sewer?" Damon questioned, silently praying that wasn't the case. He did not want to go crawling around in a sewer to stop Mason Lockwood.

"No," Bonnie countered, shaking her head. She cocked her head to one side, almost quizzically. "Like...a well? That can't be right." She was silent for another minute, but then she nodded her head and her answer was much more confident. "Yeah, it's a well."

"Why would it be a well?" Damon asked confusedly as Bonnie lowered her hands from Mason's head, opening her eyes.

She gave a whole body shudder before she repeated, "I told you, I only get what I get."

Suddenly, Mason jerked, and his hand snapped forward, grabbing onto Bonnie's wrist. Bonnie let out a frightened gasp, and let out a cry of pain as Mason's fingers elongated slightly, his fingernails digging into the soft edges of Bonnie's wrist. Damon was on the duo before Mason could do anymore. He grabbed Bonnie's forearm and Mason's wrist, extracting the limp werewolf's fingers from the witch's wrist before he could do any more damage.

As soon as Bonnie was free from Mason, she stumbled back, holding her bleeding wrist to her chest and shaking her head. "That's it. That's all I got."

She flipped around and hurried towards the door, but Damon got to her faster, grabbing her by the shoulder and flipping her around to face him. "Hold on a minute, Bonnie."

"Damon, let me go!" Bonnie insisted, trying to jerk her way out of Damon's grip.

"Bonnie, just hold on a damn minute!" Damon growled, pulling the witch close to his chest so he could hold he still. Pressed up against his chest, Bonnie was pinned and did not look pleased about it.

"You have three seconds before I snap your neck and leave you for Mason Lockwood once he wakes up!" Bonnie shouted, still wiggling around in his arms.

"Bonnie Bennett, you are bleeding from your wrist and you want to just up and walk away like nothing happened?" Damon fired back, squeezing her a little tighter to try and get her to just stay still, damnit. "At least have Ms. Gibbons make sure you're not going to bleed out in your sleep."

"You're not my dad, Damon!" Bonnie shouted. "I don't need you to take care of me!"

"You don't even need your own dad to take care of you, since you had to learn to do it at an unholy young age!" Damon shot off. "Bonnie, I could care less, absolutely less, about your safety and wellbeing, but I know many teenage girls who would literally rip the spine out of my body if you got hurt or attacked, so please, just let Ms. Gibbons take care of you."

Bonnie seemed to still at his words, and her face darkened in the telltale signs of a blush (from embarrassment, nothing else). When she pulled away from Damon, he let her go that time. He stared at her long and hard, giving her a single raised eyebrow look before she rigidly pushed past him and towards the dining room, where Ms. Gibbons was located.

"When you tell the Brady Bunch where the moonstone is, make sure that they take Victoria along with them!" Damon added over his shoulder as he turned to go tie up Mason Lockwood.

Bonnie paused, but didn't turn back around as she stated, "You're playing with fire there, Damon. Tori doesn't know about the supernatural like this and you are potentially risking a reintroduction that could be harmful to her mental psyche."

"Well, I'm about to torture her stepfather, which she could potentially walk in on because this is one of her houses, so you tell me which one would be more 'harmful to her psyche'," Damon snorted as he grabbed the chains and began to tighten them around Mason's chest, wrists, and legs. "Oh, and grab Care-Bear as well!"

"Why? Is your torture session going to be harmful to her too?"

"Nah, she just needs the exercise."

Then, from down inside the basement, Damon could faintly hear Caroline screeching, "SCREW YOU, DAMON!"

Stefan had made it just to the edge of the woods outside of the Lockwood Estate, already heading to the old well deep in the Lockwood property (thank you, Bonnie, for the text) when he heard a feminine voice yell out from behind him, "Stefan, wait!"

The voice caused Stefan to miss a step, so he stumbled, but it wasn't the voice that he thought he would have been hearing.

Instead of Elena, whom he thought would be running after him, it was Victoria. Stefan hadn't really contacted her since her new bout with amnesia, and so he was kind of startled to hear his name coming from her mouth.

Victoria caught up with him easily, despite not using a hint of her supernaturally enhanced abilities (that was probably the dancer in her). She planted her hands on her knees and panted a little bit, seeming a bit winded from the frantic run to keep up with him.

"You...You're Stefan, right?" Victoria panted, sucking in deep breaths before pushing herself back up to full standing. "Stefan Salvatore, Damon's younger brother?"

Stefan pushed his hands into his pockets, shifting awkwardly on his feet. "Yes, that's me." He gave Victoria an awkward smile. "H-How are you?"

"I'm good," Victoria hummed, nodding her head politely. She reached her hand up and scratched the back of her neck. It didn't take a rocket scientist to read the tension between the two of them. "I-I'm sorry, I know that this is weird but my dad and Caroline talked to me about everything that's happened since the car accident six months ago, and so they also told me that we used to be really good friends."

Stefan opened his mouth and then closed it, pursing his lips. He swallowed heavily and gave a short nod. "Yeah, we used to be really close. We've had a bit of a rough patch, though, so it's not as close as we'd like to be, I know."

Victoria blinked her eyes in surprise and her mouth gaped a little, in the shape of an 'oh'. Then, her eyes widened in distress and she blurted out, "Did we ever date?"

Stefan blinked back his surprise and a chuckle came out of his lips. "No, no, we never dated. There were some who thought we would've been good together," you did, at one point, and even I thought about it once, "but that was never in the cards for the two of us."

"Oh thank goodness," Victoria breathed out in relief. She then swallowed heavily and she stood up straighter, immediately following that up with, "Oh my gosh, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sure you're an amazing boyfriend and you have really nice hair, but I've already been told today that I've apparently had two boyfriends in the last six months, one of which has died and the other which apparently doesn't really count cuz we only were potentially a thing for the last two days -"

"- I can't even remember the last time I heard you ramble like this," Stefan chuckled, a soft grin coming to his lips. "It's a nice breath of fresh air."

"T-Thanks, I think?" Victoria stammered, giving him another awkward smile. "I-I hope I wasn't interrupting something, was I?"

Stefan shook his head. I mean, you were, but I can delay a little bit. "No, you're alright. I was just getting some fresh air, taking a look around the property. It's been a while since I've been up here."

"Damon said you two were from a military family on Dad's side, like, a brother or a sister of his?"

Guess we're becoming your kids, Tobias. Sorry about that, Stefan internally winced, and he nodded his head to agree with the lie. "Yeah, we were, but we were born here and grew up here a little bit before we first moved."

"I..." Victoria began, before she paused and bit her lower lip awkwardly. She sniffed and then continued, "I-I could show you around again, if you'd like? I may not remember the last six months of my life, but I do remember chasing Tyler and Caroline through these woods when I was a child and running Matt into poison ivy." She winced. "Still feel bad about that one."

Stefan couldn't help but laugh at that. "Sure, I'd love that." He cocked his head to one side as a little thought popped into his mind. "Hey, I'm actually looking for the old well that used to be on this property."

"Oh, the well deeper into the woods?" Victoria clarified, to which Stefan nodded. "Oh yeah, Caroline and I used to play around that all the time with Vicki, Bonnie, and Elena. I could show you there!"

Vicki.

Stefan really hoped that Victoria didn't stop to ask him where she was.

That was not a conversation that he wanted to be having with her.

Stefan just pushed his thoughts deeper into his brain and nodded his head in confirmation, giving Victoria a thankful smile. Victoria didn't see the mix of emotions on his face (if she did, she didn't give any physical indication of it on her face), so she smiled in return and moved ahead of him to lead him there.

"So, Caroline was telling me that you and Damon moved back here a little before the school year started, yeah?" Victoria commented, picking her way carefully through the woods.

Stefan nodded his head, even though he knew Victoria was in front of him and couldn't see him. "We actually got here closer to the end of the last school year, but we didn't actually come to stay in Mystic Falls until the start of this school year. Around September 1st, actually."

"I think that was the day I woke up from my coma," Victoria mentioned, cocking her head to one side quizzically. "I mean, if I'm remembering what Caroline told me correctly."

"Sounds about right to me."

"Have you enjoyed Mystic Falls? We aren't exactly a hotspot with anything."

Except the supernatural. "I like the peace that comes with this place, unlike the big city. You don't really have to put on a facade here. Plus, the people are kind and I've made some really good friends. People I will never forget for the rest of my life, you know?"

"Like Elena?" Victoria stated, looking behind her at him. When they locked eyes with each other, a blush decorated her cheeks that matched the color of her hair. "Sorry. Caroline might have mentioned that too in her detailed 'Girl Gossip This You Has Missed Out On Because You Have Had Amnesia For the Past Six Months' section of the history lesson last night."

Stefan waved her off, walking a little bit faster to pull himself up beside her. "Don't feel embarrassed at all. It was bound to get around to you eventually."

"If it makes any sort of a difference, I think that the two of you would be cute together," Victoria hummed, pausing for a moment to study the woods before she turned and started moving in a new direction. Stefan followed her obediently as she started to speak once more. "Care mentioned something about an ex-girlfriend?"

I see that Caroline didn't spare any details. Stefan just nodded his head solemnly. "Yeah, Katherine. Our relationship is a little...tumultuous, to say the least."

"How tumultuous, may I ask?"

"Well, she dated my brother -"

"- Damon? That brother -?"

"- at the same time she dated me."

Victoria physically stopped in her tracks and just sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes widening in disbelief. "Oh snap. Okay, so like, really tumultuous. Forget I asked."

Her eyes suddenly brightened and she let out a triumphant, "Haha! Right there! There's the well we are trying to seek."

She latched onto Stefan's wrist and Stefan didn't have the time to be shocked as Victoria dragged the two of them towards the well. It wasn't hard to see, being the only stone creation in the wooded area (Stefan did know that the old Salvatore plantation was only about a mile or so north of the well; he remembered that much at least from his memories of 1864).

Victoria let go of Stefan's wrist once they were a couple feet away from the well and skipped the rest of the way to it by herself. "Glad to see my sense of direction has not failed me." She giggled lightly to herself, as if that was some sort of inside joke, and brushed her hand against the stones. "Now, I've been a good friend and not pushed the subject but I gotta know: why were you looking for this thing?"

Lie, lie, lie, lie. "Zach has this project thing that he's working on -"

"- Oh, is this about the moonstone?" Victoria interrupted, her eyes lighting up with recognition.

Stefan wanted to facepalm. Who on earth had decided that Victoria needed to be brought into the fold with this particular supernatural errand? Not when she had amnesia! "You know about that?"

"I kind of was there when a meeting between Zach, Damon, our new history teacher, Alaric, Jeremy, the shy girl who I never saw much of junior year, Ashley or Amber, I think her name was, and your bestie and her boyfriend was happening and kind of just overheard," Victoria mused. "Gotta admit, don't understand half of what was said, but I do know that Zach was looking for a moonstone for research. Jeremy said he was going to try and talk to Tyler Lockwood about it, but I never heard how that went."

"Tyler had given it to Mason and didn't know where it had gone," Stefan explained, picking and choosing his words carefully so he didn't spill any more beans that didn't need to be spilled. "Bonnie and Damon talked to Mason about it and managed to deduce that it was here at the old well. We don't exactly know what else that means, but we're pretty sure that it is in the well."

"Oh," Victoria hummed, glancing down the iron grating used for protection on the well. Her lips pursed together in thought, and then they flattened into more of a frown. "Weird place to put it, Mason. But that's a pretty big drop, Stefan. They put the iron grating on this well for a reason."

"But there's also this iron chain," Stefan told her reassuringly, patting the iron chains that also descended into the abyss. "I've done some pretty neat extracurricular activities in my times away from Mystic Falls, and spelunking was one of them."

He moved to the lock that was on the iron grating and positioned himself in such a way that Victoria wouldn't be able to see it. With a sharp tug from his arm, the lock snapped off and he dropped it into the tall grass where she couldn't see it. At her quizzical gaze, he just shrugged and commented, "It was rusty already. Anyone could have broken it."

She mumbled to herself something along the lines of how dangerous that was for there to be a rusty lock on a well as Stefan worked on getting the iron grating off. She was too distracted from the fact that the lock on the well had been "rusty" that she didn't even notice how impossible it should have been for Stefan to pull the grating on top off.

Stefan brought out the little heavy-duty flashlight that Lexi had gotten him as a gag gift a couple Christmases ago ("To bring you out of your dark moody sessions, my guy" had been her exact words). He clicked it on and simultaneously, both he and Victoria leaned forward to look down the well.

Victoria's fingers tightened against the edge of the well and she swallowed heavily. "I'm really glad that you're the one doing this, no offense. Both my fear of heights and my fear of bodies of water are going crazy."

Stefan tried to give her a reassuring smile as he clambered his way up onto the edge of the well. "I'll only be down there for a minute, at the most. Zach was able to give me the vaguest idea of what I'm supposed to be looking for, so it shouldn't be too hard, you know?"

"Yeah," Victoria gulped, swallowing heavily as she gave Stefan what was probably her best attempt at reassurance.

Stefan just gave her a nod before he let his feet slip and he fell into the well. The well was pretty deep, much deeper than he remembered it being. Stefan gripped the flashlight tighter and folded his arms across his chest, just in time for him to hit the water.

Something about the water made the air in his lungs get knocked out of his chest. When he resurfaced, soaked to the core, it felt like everything was aching, burning in a way that it shouldn't be. When he lifted his arm, he could see vapor rising from his arm.

That shouldn't be happening.

And then the pain hit him.

Caroline hadn't wanted to go into the woods. She was enjoying actually being able to have a conversation with her mother about supernatural stuff without worrying about the consequences (once the vervain was drained from her mother's blood, then one of the senior vampires would be able to compel her to forget all the memories. It was almost like a confessional). She had just finished explaining all the fluffy details about what an Immortalis was (her mother had truly sobbed when she realized that she hadn't murdered her daughter's best friend; well, not permanently) when Damon had announced that she would be going to the Lockwood Estate to help Victoria, Stefan, and whoever else was there to find the moonstone (he even threw in a comment about her weight, which made her want to drive a stake through his heart for that).

Just for that slight, she had made sure to kick a pebble a little too hard in the direction of his car.

However, when she got into the woods and started running to the old Lockwood well that she, Bonnie, Elena, Vicki, and Victoria used to play around (during the days when Matt would be studying with Kelly for his driver's test), she hadn't expected to hear the combined panicked and pained screams of Victoria and Stefan, respectively (she honestly should, by now, given how many times they have been attacked).

It was the pure panic in Victoria's voice that made Caroline's feet instinctively push themselves farther and harder. It was almost instinctive, that burn in Caroline's heart that forced her to push her abilities to the very edge. If Victoria was panicked and scared, that just wouldn't do. Caroline never wanted Victoria to feel that way again, not after all she had already been through.

She came into the clearing, and her loud, thundering steps drew Victoria's attention away from the well and onto her. "Victoria!"

"Caroline!" Victoria gasped just as Elena came from the opposite direction. "Elena?"

"Victoria! Matt said that Stefan came this way with you and then I heard you scream!" Elena panted, seeming out of breath from the run. A pained scream came from the well, causing all three girls to flinch. "Oh my gosh, is that Stefan? Stefan!"

"Caroline!" Victoria shouted, turning her attention away from the panicked teenager who was now at the well's edge. "Stefan's down there, and the chain is rusted. I-I can't pull it up. I need help."

Caroline, without breaking a sweat, shed her cardigan and bunched it up, tossing it aside. "We shouldn't use the chain. It could snap at any minute and then hurt everyone involved. I'll go in."

"Caroline, wait!" Elena interjected, holding a hand up. "You can't! Stefan says that it's filled with vervain!"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Victoria demanded, waving her hands semi-frantically. "Care's not allergic or anything."

"Actually -"

"- You mean you're this level of allergic to something and I'm just learning about it?" Victoria questioned.

"You've had amnesia for the past six months!" Caroline shouted back, feeling a small amount of irritation rise in the back of her throat. "It's a new development!"

"Caroline! Victoria! Focus, please!" Elena pleaded. "Whether or not Caroline is allergic to vervain can be discussed later! Stefan is deathly allergic and he could die!" Elena's face turned more determined and she nodded her head firmly. "I'll go down. I'm not allergic, it won't affect me."

"Elena, if that chain snaps, neither one of us will be able to get you back up!" Caroline argued. "It'll be a dead friend and a trapped friend in a well -"

"- But we can't just leave him there -!"

"- I'm not suggesting we do, but we need to think strategically and quickly -"

"- Please don't hate me," Victoria whispered, and it was so out of the blue and off topic that it jarred Caroline out of the argument with Elena.

And then the ground began to shake; small quivers, nothing like it had been when Victoria had been poisoned and caused the earthquake yesterday (oh gosh, was it only yesterday that that had happened?).

Victoria took two steps back from the well and her hands twitched and moved until they were formulated like gentle scoops. Her arms began to move, gentle and fluid, a direct contrast to the panic that had been in her body previously. Her eyes fluttered close and her whole body swayed as she moved like a meditative, almost trance-like state. Each time she swerved her arms or her fingers twitched, the ground would tremor and quake. Caroline was watching with an unparalleled sense of awe. Something about Victoria's movements were enthralling...magnetic...it was almost...

Before Caroline could finish that thought, Victoria's eyes shot open and their appearance chilled Caroline to the core and snapped her out of whatever reverie she had been in.

They were an icy blue, nothing like Victoria's eye color was normally. It definitely wasn't the Immortalis white and black that Caroline had become so accustomed to. It wasn't even like Damon's eye color, the kind that would normally be called icy blue. No, these eyes were...

...inhuman.

With a feral growl, Victoria's hands clenched into fists and she thrust her arms up high above her head. The well damn near exploded with water pressure, water shooting out of the well like it was an oil spring. Caroline rushed away, feeling the barest hints of vervained water against her skin. In the water, she could pick out the rough shape of a crap ton of snakes (like holy shit, there were a lot of snakes hidden in the well), Stefan's body, which was unceremoniously dumped near Elena's feet, and a wooden box that fell somewhere between Victoria and Caroline. Once it was clear that Stefan was out of the well, Victoria's hands made a tightening motion, almost as if she was snapping a belt together, and the water dispersed, flinging high by the treetops before falling harmlessly towards the ground.

For a moment, there was silence, just the noises of Stefan's pained groans, Elena's gentle sobs, and the sound of water dripping through the leaves far away from them.

Then Caroline just whispered, "What the fuck?"

"S-So then Victoria brought him out of the well, with powers she never had before and he's all v-vervained and rotted, but I'm one of the only people Bonnie didn't yell at today, and I just...I really think it's progress, you know? I just..." Caroline wheezed, shaking herself out. She let out a frustrated sigh and just shook her head. "And I'm freaking you out."

"It's just..." her mother began, licking her lips in contemplation as she stared at Caroline from across the room. "It's just that you've become this person -"

"- Don't. Don't! We...We're just starting to get along -"

"- this strong, this confident person," Liz finished, a small, almost tender smile, coming to her lips.

Caroline blushed heavily and nodded her head in appreciation. "Oh. Thank you."

Liz sat up a little straighter and Caroline tried to not to let her smile fall when she heard her mother's heart skip a beat. "You don't have to take my memories away. I'll keep your secret. Look, if you're worried about them, just say you compelled me. I won't tell. I cannot do anything to hurt you!"

Caroline's heart panged as she whispered tentatively, "We never talk like this. Ever. And today...today meant so much to me."

"Me too," Liz agreed, nodding her head.

"I know," Caroline told her honestly.

She approached Liz and reached her hands out, grasping her mother's hands in her own. Liz held tightly to her hands and had a hopeful smile on her lips and a glimmer in her eyes.

Caroline swallowed heavily as she felt tears spring to her eyes. "I know I can trust you, but you're never going to trust them. And i-it's more than me. It's everyone." She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, she knew that her eyes were red with her vampiric essence. She stared her mother dead in the eye and hissed, "I'm going to take you home. You're going to forget everything that I told you since you came into the boarding house, from me being a vampire to Victoria being the Immortalis."

"I'm going to forget everything since I came into the boarding house, from you being a vampire to Victoria being the Immortalis," her mother echoed dumbly, her eyes blank.

Tears began to flow down Caroline's cheeks as she struggled to finish off the rest of her compelling. "You'll remember you got sick with the flu. Kelly LeBlanc must have given it to you. You had a fever, chills, and ickiness, but I made you soup and it was really salty. We bickered. You got better and then your selfish, little daughter, who loves you no matter what, went right back to ignoring you and all is right in the world." Caroline snapped her eyes shut and just cried. "Now sleep and when you wake up, you'll be at home."

Caroline shot to her feet and ran out of the room before she could even hear Liz fall to the floor. Though, Caroline didn't exactly get far once she was outside of the door.

Caroline ran straight into Damon as she was trying to escape from the basement. She hit him hard enough that it caused him to stagger back a step. His arms snapped around her like a metal cage...or a security blanket.

Sometimes it's better to be with a person who's scarier than the nightmares themselves, Caroline's former words echoed in the back of her mind. They seemed a little too appropriate for pressing circumstances.

"I compelled my mom," Caroline whispered brokenly, feeling her heart hum within her chest. Her fangs burned, and her gums ached with bloodlust. It took everything in her power not to reach out and grab the nearest thing with a heartbeat and drain it dry. "I had to. I had to save my mother from the dangers, I had to save Victoria from danger, I had to...I-I had to."

Damon's arms held Caroline a little tighter as she broke down some more. "Yeah, Blondie. I know. You did good."

Damon rapped his knuckles against the front door to the LeBlanc household, waiting until he heard the timid, "Come in." before pushing himself into the unlocked house. He only allowed himself a little scoff at the action. "An unlocked front door is a dangerous thing to have in this town, Kelly-Beans."

"Well, considering the supernatural creatures I don't really like are vampires who can't even get in without my explicit permission, I'm not too worried," came Kelly's tired voice from the living room.

Damon shut the front door (and made sure to lock it; he wasn't a savage, like some) and marched his way into the living room.

And sheesh, Kelly had seen better days.

Not that she wasn't looking amazing as she normally did (Kelly, if you're reading my thoughts, you look exceptional today, as always).

But yeah, she really had seen better days.

Her hair was loose and wild, something that Damon didn't often see Kelly's hair like. She was curled up in sleep shorts, a ratty-old jersey, and a (though Damon would never admit it) stupid looking blanket with some bad lovey-dovey words written on it. She had a steaming cup of hot chocolate in her hands (probably drizzled with caramel, a LeBlanc specialty), and she was looking towards nothing. The TV wasn't on. Nothing was playing on the radio. Just sitting silent in her home...

...weird.

"Where's Victoria?"

"Said she had to go and see Caroline about something," Kelly said dismissively. "Was heading to her house. I barely saw her. She just came straight inside, grabbed something, and left."

Damon narrowed his eyes at Kelly. She was too nonchalant about everything. That wasn't how Kelly was normally.

The thought struck Damon like lightning and sagged a little in on himself. "You know about Katherine and Mason."

At his words, Kelly flinched and pulled herself tighter into her clothes and blanket. It took only a sniff from Damon to definitely recognize the scent of Mason on her jersey and on her blanket.

Damon walked around the couch and set himself down next to Kelly gently, not wanting to disturb her. He heard the faintest sniffles, as if Kelly was trying to conceal them from him. Prey don't like to show weakness to a predator, Damon recalled hearing a senior vampire once say to him (said senior vampire being Lexi, once upon a time).

"The harsh reality of being a Wanderer," Kelly murmured, her voice so soft that Damon almost didn't hear it. "Did...Did you kill him?"

"As much as I wanted to, I couldn't," Damon admitted, his voice just as soft. He leaned back against the couch, not turning to look at Kelly. He knew that she couldn't handle that kind of pressure right then. "While he may be an asshole out for my life and the biggest shithead to cheat on you with a two-timing bitch who looks like his nephew's friend, he is your boyfriend and Victoria's basically stepdad." He let out a sharp breath through his nose as he stated through gritted teeth, "If anyone gets to kill the bastard, it's you two."

Kelly made a swallowing noise that sounded like she had a large piece of food stuck in her throat. And then, slowly, cautiously, Damon felt a head rest itself against his shoulder. He stayed perfectly still, not wanting to scare Kelly off from opening up to him again. Only after a minute of silence and no movement, when his back was starting to cramp, did he move, though only to rest his head against hers.

That seemed to trigger her emotions, because Kelly's shoulders started to heave as she let out quiet, mournful sobs, all of them passing through gritted teeths and bitten lips.

It almost made Damon wish he had taken Mason Lockwood's heart out.

Oh well.

Better to have him alive instead of dead.

All it took was for her to take one step into the dark, dank, basement room for Mason Lockwood to snap.

"It's about time you got here," Mason grunted, rattling the chains that were holding him tight against the wall. Curse himself for always bringing them everywhere with him; he knew they were going to become an issue one day, but did that stop him? Nooooo. "There's a key to these chains in my backpack. I think Damon left it upstairs, kicked it under a couch maybe? Who knows? You might need to go snooping a bit. I'd bet the moonstone is also up there."

The woman across from him did not speak as she grabbed the lonesome chair in the room, pulling it across the stone floor. It made a horrendous screeching noise, one that caused Mason to howl in agony as it tore apart his enhanced hearing. Once it stopped, and the woman had planted herself into it, did he snarl at her, "That hurt."

"Good," came her succinct reply. "It was supposed to."

Mason's brow furrowed and he cocked his head to the side as he grunted, "Come again?"

"It was supposed to," the woman echoed again, rolling her eyes at Mason. "Hurt, that is. It was supposed to hurt."

Mason resisted the urge to growl. The wolf inside was not exactly slap-happy about having to listen to someone who was obviously not the alpha of his little pack. He made his reactions known to the woman in front of him. "When we made this arrangement, we agreed that I was in charge. I brought you here."

"No, you agreed to be in charge," the woman snapped back, crossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest. "I don't believe that I agreed to anything. And you were the one who sent me there in the first place. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have to deal with this little problem I've got going on now."

Mason gritted his teeth, but decided to move on. They had more pressing issues to get to. "Did you stop them from getting the moonstone?"

"My job was never to stop them from getting the moonstone, but to rather make sure I knew where it was when they got it," the woman replied snarkily, raising an eyebrow. "And I do."

"Good. Now, get me out, we'll grab it, and then we'll be off on our way."

The woman in front of him just chuckled. "No."

Mason felt his temper flare up. "Excuse me?"

"You're excused."

"I thought I just heard you say 'no'."

"I did," the woman answered. She leaned forward in her chair and there was suddenly a chill in the room that hadn't been there before. Her blue eyes seemed a little colder than before as well. "Let me make one thing clear, Mason. I don't know what preconceived notions you have, but you aren't leaving this basement."

"Excuse me?"

"Did you not just hear me say that you're already excused?" the woman scoffed, rolling her eyes again with a playful, deadly taunt. The playfulness dropped away in a second, though, and revealed the hidden persona underneath. "You are not walking out of this room, Mason Lockwood. I have waited years to get revenge on what you did to my father. To get revenge on what you did to me."

"I have been nothing but a saint to you! I brought you back!" Mason roared. "I helped raise you!"

"You stole that job from my actual father," the woman hissed. "You did nothing. And now, you'll continue to do nothing."

There was something coming on Mason's shoulder. Wet, damp, and a texture unlike anything that Mason had ever felt before. It crawled along the surface of his shirt, and when it touched his neck, he flinched at the sharp contrast in temperature. "What are you doing?"

"What I should have done the moment I discovered I could even do something like this," came her reply. "Have fun drowning. It's not pleasant, and believe me, I know."

And then it came into his mouth and he couldn't breathe.

He couldn't breathe.

A/N: Hey everyone! So I decided to do a little once every two weeks schedule just until I get back into the zone, and it'll give me time to stay ahead with chapters. I really enjoyed making this one, I love the ending and the little Damon/Kelly scene. Crud is about to hit the fan soon, though, so everyone be prepared!

Child of Dreams: Welp...they haven't discovered that switch just yet. I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter! Hope you enjoy this one too!

DBZFAN45: IT'S TRUE! IT LIVES! Remember, this story is called Immortalis, which means it can die but never will stay dead. Elena definitely still has a way to go before she'll chill out. Quite a bit of ways. THANK YOU!

CyrusWolfricFaust81194: Answering your questions from Ch39 and Ch43, that would've been a great idea, but unfortunately, no. Immortali's powers come from a specific source of magic, but it is not a source of magic that has yet been discovered in this story. Yeaaaah, never understood that about witches either. They really do always seem to high and mighty, right?

Next chapter will be out in two weeks! See you all then!

Until next time,

Stay healthy and stay safe!

BecomingFearless1F