"Oh right there…. harder." Alyssa moaned.
Someone clearing their throat causes Alyssa to look up, and she finds Stefan leaning against the door with his arms crossed.
"Carlos, you must be really good if I'm hallucinating." She rests her head back on her forearm on the table.
"You're not hallucinating."
She looked up at him as she got her back rubbed. "See, that's where you're wrong," she said, resting her chin on her crossed arm. " Because if I'm not hallucinating, then that means you're here, and you're not supposed to be."
"I came to check up on you." After their last conversation, he hadn't heard from her since she left the boarding house.
"No need." She rested her head back on her arms. "I'm fine. A little lower, Carlos, please." Carlos dug his hand in the middle of her bare back. "As you can see, Carlos is taking care of me. So you can leave."
She tried to go back to enjoying her massage,e but she could still feel his eyes on her.
She turned to him with a sigh."You're not going to leave until you're sure I'm okay, " she said, sitting up and covering herself with a towel. So, how can I prove it to you to get back to Carlos?"
Now that she was upright, she could read his body language better. She knew he wasn't there to check on her; he needed to talk.
She stood up, dropping the sheet around her to get dressed. Stefan turned around to give her some privacy. "You can look now."
Stefan turned back around, and she turned to Carlos. "Leave and forget you were ever here." He gathered his things and left the room. She sat down on the bed, preparing to hear whatever Stefan came to say. " Okay, talk. Did something happen between them or what?"
She didn't want to know the answer, but Stefan needed someone to talk to. Since she was the reason the person he would have customarily unburdened himself with was dead, she felt she owed him to listen. Besides, who else would understand what he was going through?
He sat beside her close to the edge of the bed, "She tried to tell me. I told her I didn't want to know."
"Yeah. Me too." However, her reasons were different from his. "How are you doing with all this?" She'd been so busy worrying about Rick and dealing with her feelings that she never stopped asking him about his.
"My brother's in love with my girlfriend." He shrugged. "I don't even know what to feel. Part of me hates it. The other part can't help but wonder if whatever he's feeling for her could be good. It'll give him back a piece of his humanity."
"She does bring out a more humane side of him." She has seen it more than once. "She makes him want to be a better person. I get that you want that for him, but it shouldn't come at the expense of your happiness."
He raised his brow at her in a challenge.
"Yeah, I know that's weird coming from me. But that means I'm uniquely qualified to give unwanted advice. That advice is to stop punishing yourself for Damon becoming a vampire. You've had two lifetimes of guilt; it's time to let it go. You don't owe him anything, not the woman you love."
"It doesn't matter if she chooses him."
"Then let it be because it's what she wanted and not because you didn't fight for her." She gave him a light shove. "So go, fight, pleas,e so I don't have to hear you bitching about it for the next 145 years like Damon."
He smiled softly, "Will I see you at the dance tonight? Elena invited me to be her date, but maybe I can do a dance or two for you. "
"Thanks, but I think I will stay in tonight." She didn't feel like watching them happy together, knowing that Damon was off somewhere miserable and secretly jealous.
She stood up, walked over to him, pulled him off her bed, and pushed him to the door. " But that shouldn't stop you from going and having fun." She opened the door for him, hoping it would get him to leave faster. "Don't worry about me; I will be fine."
She turned around to let him out the door and came face to face with Damon.
"We have a problem."
She opened the door to let him in and left it open as she turned to him. His eyes were returning from Stefan to her messy bed, and one of the candles she lit for her massage was scented.
They ended their search on hers, and she immediately looked away. She couldn't handle the guilty, longing look she saw in them since she had given him his memories back. They hadn't talked about it, and she didn't want to, but if she were to stop running from her feelings, then she needed to deal with Damon—just not right now.
"What's the problem?"
"Rick?"
She crossed her arms. "What? Did the herbs Bonnie gave him stop working?"
He shows them a glass jar full of herbs. "Can they work if he doesn't take them? I found these in his loft untouched."
"Where is he now?" Stefan asked.
"How should I know?"
"We have to find him," Alyssa said.
"Then what? We tried medicine, we tried magic."
Stefan suggests, "Why don't we compel him off vervain?"
"What? To pretend to be Alaric? The guy that we know is gone. We're talking about someone who not only hates vampires but vampire sympathizers. Who do you think is his most obvious target?"
They all knew Elena would be the easiest target. She was less of a threat, and he could use her to get to any of them.
"Then what do we do?" Alyssa couldn't see any other way out of it.
"We put him out of his misery.
"No way in hell!" Alyssa protested.
"Oh, come on, It's what he would want. It's a mercy killing."
"This is Alaric we're talking about. He stepped up to care for us when Jenna died; now, we must do the same for him. Killing him is out of the question. So we have to come up with something else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. But I know somebody who might."
She left to track down Klaus, hoping that in all the years he'd been alive, he knew of something that might be able to help Rick, but he wasn't home.
Neither was Rebekah, which she found strange. She thought for sure she was going to be getting ready for the dance.
She pulled out her cell phone to call Rebekah, hoping she might know where Klaus was. She dialed her number and heard her phone coming from somewhere inside.
She connected to the call, followed the ringing sounds to where Klaus kept, and opened his coffins.
She hung up when she saw her in the coffin. "Well, you won't be any help." She pulled the dagger out of Rebekah's chest and then left.
She called Stefan's number to fill him in. "Any luck with Klaus?" Stefan asked.
"Couldn't find him. I did find Rebekah daggered in a coffin."
"She must have pissed off Klaus."
"I don't know. They've been getting along better these days."
"You think it was Rick?"
"Maybe. I'm going to see if I can track him down."
"We don't know what state of mind he'll be in when you find him. Be Careful."
"Always." She hung up and started her search for Rick, finding Damon in the process. Despite their awkwardness, they decided to look for him together but weren't having much luck.
Alyssa suggested to Damon that he could already be on his way to the high school for Elena, and Damon called his brother to warn him as they were on their way.
They ran into Jeremy on the way in and stopped him to ask if he had seen Elena and Stefan. Jeremy told them they were in the gym, and Damon left to find them.
"What's going on?"
"We think Rick might be after Elena. Damon found the herbs Bonnie gave him in his apartment. The bottle was full. He could be on his way right now, so I need to get you somewhere safe."
"Wait, I thought he was only after vampires. If he were going after anyone, it'd be you."
"He's not just after vampires anymore. So I need to get you somewhere safe."
She grabbed him to get him out of there but was stopped by an invisible wall. "What the hell?"
Stefan came out to find them. "We have a problem."
They follow Stefan into a classroom where several candles are lit, and Bonnie chants. Damon, Klaus, Jamie, and Jeremy are there.
"Please tell me she's close to getting us out of here," Alyssa asks Damon as they watch Bonnie try to break the boundary spell that was trapping them inside put there by Ester.
Matt enters the classroom. "People are walking right out of the dance, past the barrier."
"Matt and I can leave; we can stop Esther ourselves. We have to find out where she is," Jeremy says.
"Not," Alyssa told him. "Bonnie will get us out of here, and when she does, we will find Elena and Ester. This time, I'll make sure she stays dead."
It was taking longer than usual, and Klaus was getting impatient.
"What's taking so long?"
"Esther is fighting me."
"Esther couldn't possibly have this much power." Klaus pointed out.
"Unless she's channeling something." Alyssa corrected.
"A hotspot?" Bonnie guessed.
"Get the humans ready. I know where she is." Klaus said.
Alyssa turned to Jermey as much as she hated the idea of him going out there alone. Bonnie would have been nearly impossible if Ester were channeling a hot spot. There was no other way.
She nodded to Jeremy to go after Klaus and told them they could find Ester at the old cemetery. It went against everything in her, but what other options did they have?
She watched Matt and Jeremy cross through the border, both armed and ready for the fight that awaited them.
"Please tell me Bonnie is close to getting us out of here." She said to Stefan once he walked out.
"Ester's still fighting her."
"So we're still stuck, and Jeremy's out there with Matt facing a thousand-year-old witch with an axe to grind."
"I'm surprised you let him go."
"If I didn't and something happened to Elena or Rick, he would have never forgiven me for making him stay when he could have helped."
"If it does, then it would be entirely your fault," Klaus said. "You set us on this path when you released my mother. I wonder if revenge will prove worth the cost."
"You started this when you went after my sister. So whatever happens is on you. And we do go down. I hope I live long enough to see Ester kill you. Then dying will be worth it."
Bonnie comes out of the school.
"It's done. Esther's not fighting me anymore. The boundary spell is broken."
Alyssa tests the boundary with her arm, and seeing Bonnie's words are correct, she rushes away. She arrives at the old cemetery to find Esther lying on the ground.
"Jeremy, Elena!" She calls out for them, heading voices in the Salvatore tomb. She runs towards it, throws open the door, and finds Elena and Jeremy with Rick. "Everybody okay?"
The looks she got in return let her know that nothing was okay.
"So, I'm just supposed to let you lock yourself in here and leave you to die alone?" After learning about Esther's attempt to turn him into a vampire hunter, she asks. He had decided that he wasn't going to complete the transition. It was too dangerous.
"You know it's the right thing to do. After everything that's happened, after all that I have done. Maybe I had it coming."
"I'm sorry."
"This isn't your fault, and I don't want you to use this as an excuse to shut down again and push everyone away."
"Of course not."
She wasn't one for goodbyes, so she hugged him briefly so he could say goodbye to Jeremy and Elena.
"Don't give me some crap speech about how I need to be the man of the house," Jeremy tells him.
"Okay, I won't."
Alaric hugs Jeremy, and Jeremy walks away. Alyssa wraps her arm around Jeremy, and they leave the tomb.
Esther's body is gone, but Stefan, Damon, Matt, Caroline, Tyler, Bonnie, and Meredith are still there.
Her instincts tell her to check to see how Damon's doing, but she fights them. Stefan starts to head her way, but she shakes her head to ask him to stay away, and he stops. He needs to be there for Elena.
Elena comes out of the tomb, and Alaric follows her. They see a gathering of people outside the tomb, lit candles scattered around them. Alaric smiles a little. Alaric tears up goes into the tomb, and closes the gate.
Jeremy goes off with Matt, Caroline with Tyler, and Stefan leaves with Elena but looks back at Alyssa as he does. The only two people left are her and Damon.
She thought about staying with him, but she spent enough time looking after him. She needed to grieve, too. She knew if she stayed, then she'd be worried about comforting him instead, so she left.
Home wasn't a place she wanted to be, but if she were going to process her grief instead of running from it, then home was exactly where she needed to be.
She opened the door to the room that used to belong to her parents, then Jenna and the Alaric, all of whom would soon be gone. There was no point in hanging onto things, and she had a lot of practice packing up the stuff of dead loves. There was no better moment than right now. She put on some music and started packing up everything.