A/N: y'all this chapter has one of the first scenes I ever thought of for this fic and I can't believe after half a decade it's out of my head and into yours. also I've been getting messages about people wanting to make fan art and they're all kind of worded similarly so it's giving spam vibes but on the off chance that it's not spam yes of course you may make fan art for this, it's not even fully mine to begin with I'm just borrowing the world. anyways. hope you enjoy. :)
Damon stayed true to his word. When disaster stacked upon disaster, and I didn't even have time to process all the death, let alone my feelings for him, he stayed dedicated. Through it all, I couldn't help but wonder— if this was what happened before Klaus even got to town, what would happen when he got here?
Death number one was one of the witches (warlocks?) working for Elijah. Bonnie had tried her best to convince them both that we also wanted to take down Klaus, but they didn't trust us. So the witch tried to astral project to take the dagger out of Elijah, which Damon and Katherine were able to thwart, but not without killing the witch.
The second death happened when the witch's father sought revenge and tried to come after Elena. Perhaps the scariest part was that Katherine was the one who got us out of it. She had the idea to pretend to be Elena, and attacked the witch when he came after her.
His death almost became multiple deaths— the witch had unleashed carnage upon the grill, and nearly killed Matt in the process. Thankfully Caroline was there, but now Matt knew about her. To say he didn't take it well would be an understatement. But that would have to be a disaster for another day.
Because then Isobel died. Killed herself, actually. But not before bringing her own personal brand of chaos back into our lives. She revealed herself to Jenna, who very much thought that Alaric's wife was dead, and staged a coup with Katherine.
By the time I learned something was amiss, it was too late. The moonstone was gone. Katherine had been playing the long game with us. None of us considered the fact that she had invited herself into my house when we hid it in there once again.
"She got what was coming to her," Damon said, when Elena told us that Isobel had sold out Katherine to Klaus.
I couldn't help but agree. The only silver lining was that before all hell broke loose, Bonnie actually managed to channel the energy from the witch massacre site— and as far as we knew, Katherine had no idea, which meant that no matter how much Klaus tried to get information out of her, that would remain our secret. All we could do was hope it would be enough of an edge to take out Klaus.
Elena took Isobel's death harder than I did. Probably because she actually had to witness it. When she asked to speak to John about Isobel, alone, I agreed. As much as I wanted to go in there and punch John out for his role in bringing Isobel back into our lives, I knew Elena needed answers more. This was her life long before it was mine.
"What happened?" I asked, when she re-emerged teary eyed.
"He's on our side, now," She replied.
"Really?" I managed to bite back a remark about believing him; I knew I had formed my fair share of questionable alliances. But Elena could see the question on my face anyways.
"He's…he's the only parent I have left alive," She explained. "Lucy, you came back into my life at a time when I needed family most. He keeps showing up here and…and I don't know. Maybe it's a sign. I have to try with him."
I nodded. Some part of me might always hate him for the fact that I was looking for him the night I lost my brother. But it was that same part of me, the part that had lost part of my family, that could understand why Elena would be willing to connect with hers. Ours, I guess.
With Katherine gone and Isobel dead, we had no remaining connections to Klaus. He could be anywhere. Every unfamiliar face I passed on the street could be Klaus, come to collect what he deemed his birthright. We couldn't trust anyone outside of our circle.
So Stefan and Damon had the brilliant idea of creating a safe house by putting the deed to their house in Elena and I's name.
"That way we have a place that no one else can invite vampires into. Not John, not Jenna, not any out-of-the-loop parents," Damon said.
Elena's face fell at the mention of Jenna. Jenna still hadn't forgiven her for withholding the information that Isobel was not only alive, but had also met with Elena. I knew the guilt was only worsened by the fact that there was so much more Jenna didn't know.
"Both of us?" Elena asked. I would have made some joke about her wanting the house all to herself, but things weren't very funny these days.
Stefan nodded. "That way if one of you…if something happens to you, we still have a person attached to the house."
He was nice enough to not include the word "living" ahead of "person", but the message hung in the air all the same.
"How can you even sign the house over to us if we're not legally adults?" I asked. "Am I going to have to pay taxes on it?"
"It's a very under-the-table process," Damon said, which meant compulsion would be involved. "Whatever witchy-magic prevents us from entering homes uninvited doesn't care about taxes or legal age or any of that, all that matters is the little piece of paper that says this home is yours."
One morning meeting with a compelled lawyer and a few signatures later, Elena and I were homeowners. When we opened the front door to let Stefan and Damon back in and they couldn't cross the threshold, I couldn't help but smirk, even with the circumstances leading up to their predicament being as grim as they were.
"Right," I said, thankful that Elena was also laughing. "Stefan, as my best friend, of course you may enter my home."
"And am I just going to have to wait out here?" Damon asked when Stefan stepped inside.
I shrugged. "You know, Stefan's actually the only vampire I've ever knowingly invited inside." My mom had technically been the one to invite Caroline in, and anyone else had entered my home under the guise of being human. "I kinda like it that way, symmetry and all that. Elena can invite you in, if she wants."
I gave Damon a wave, but didn't stick around to see if Elena made him work for his invitation. If she did, she didn't make him work for very long, as he stood at my side the moment I picked up my car keys.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked.
"School." I raised my eyebrows, and my keys jingled as I motioned for him to move out of my way. "Don't worry, we'll drive separately, that way if one of us gets in a car crash you'll still have a human owner of the house."
"Lucy…" Stefan stopped in his tracks as he entered the room, Elena shortly behind him.
"You're not going to school," Damon's eyelids fluttered as he fought back an eye roll at his brother's inability to tolerate the macabre. "We didn't just create a safe house for you to leave it."
"We have to." I replied. "It doesn't matter if you guys can compel us passing grades and better attendance records. Someday, hopefully, both of us are going to become real adults that need to get real jobs and that's going to require us to actually know things."
"Maybe you and Stefan really are meant to be best friends," Damon said. "I've never seen two people so determined to go to high school when they have every excuse not to."
"We have no idea when Klaus is going to show up. It could be weeks. Elena might be able to get away with it while Jenna's still mad at her, but my parents will definitely notice if I'm gone that long," I said. "I thought the point of this was that we'll have a place to retreat to when things get bad."
"The point was to keep things from getting bad by keeping you safe in this house," Damon said.
"Look, I know everyone at school. If someone out of place shows up, I'll know right away. I promise," Elena stepped in. "And you said it yourself, Klaus has no idea Bonnie harnessed all that power. So as long as I'm right next to her, I'm safe."
Stefan and Damon exchanged glances, but Elena didn't give them any room to fight her on it. She always was better at having the last word than I was. Or maybe Stefan was just more willing to let her make her own choices than Damon was with me.
Something still felt off in school though. The imbalance of the universe made itself more apparent when Elena waved a poster for tonight's decade dance at me and Stefan. Things really were upside down if she was the one advocating for fun. Bonnie at least matched her enthusiasm, though it was probably easier to be excited about things with the energy of hundreds of dead witches running through her veins.
I rolled my head to the side to look at Stefan. "If we're going, you're letting us borrow clothes."
"Am I now?" Stefan replied. For the first time all day, his mouth formed something that was more like a smile and less like a grimace.
"I've seen your bedroom. I know you've been hoarding stuff from every decade."
Alaric saved Stefan from having to verbally commit to lending Elena and I outfits from the House of Salvatore archives by shuffling into class after the bell rang.
"Hello, class," He said, "What are we learning today?"
I hid my half-laugh, half-scoff with my hand. Ric was lucky his job had a high mortality rate, otherwise the school board might not be so willing to tolerate his habit of coming to class hungover or otherwise disheveled.
In the front row, Dana raised her hand. "With the decade dance tonight, we've been covering the sixties all week."
I rolled my eyes. Dana would be the one to supply Ric with his lesson plan. She and Caroline were constantly in competition for the highest GPA. Or at least they were, before Caroline got turned into a vampire, and her superhuman abilities compounded with her existing perfectionist habits, leaving Dana zero hopes of ever becoming valedictorian.
"Right," Ric nodded. "The sixties…" He looked around the classroom until his eyes fell upon Elena. His gaze lingered on her, and he must have been pleading for help from her with filling in the lesson plan or something, but his pleas went unnoticed by her. They didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the class though, and a few students glanced at her, questioning why she held his attention today.
"The, uh…" Ric cleared his throat, and turned away from Elena to scribble on the board when it became apparent she wouldn't be of any help with his lack of lesson planning. He should have known better, seeing as he was privy to most of the events that kept all of us from giving school our utmost attention. "The sixties. I wish there was something good I could say about the sixties, but actually, they kind of sucked. Except for the Beatles, of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban missile thing, the— we walked on the moon. There was Watergate—"
"Watergate was the seventies, Ric." Elena finally chimed in. Anyone who wasn't already side-eyeing Elena due to Ric staring her down a moment ago turned to look at her. "I-I mean, Mr. Saltzman."
"Right." Ric nodded. "It all kind of mushes together up here, the sixties, seventies. Thank you, Elena."
Elena sunk down into her seat as everyone's attention slowly trickled away from her and back to the improvised lesson Ric was teaching us. I caught her eye.
"Ric?" I mouthed.
She shrugged and waved me away. I shook my head. I would definitely be giving her more grief for that later. There was a non-zero chance that multiple students in our class now thought Elena and Alaric had some weird teacher-student relationship going on. Which wasn't exactly incorrect, but it wasn't that type of weird teacher student relationship.
He scraped by for the rest of class by mostly talking about the moon landing and surrounding space race, which, to be fair, definitely was the most interesting part of the sixties, though everyone tuned in a little bit more when he switched to pop culture talk at the end of the period, prepping everyone for the music that might be played at the dance tonight.
After class, I lingered by his desk, where he was shuffling through papers that may as well have been written in a different language from the way he looked at them.
"Hey there, Ric," I teased. "Might want to take it easy on the bourbon on school nights. I think the whole class could tell you were hungover."
"I might want to…" He stared at me blankly. It wasn't the first, or even the third time he had received the suggestion, but he didn't love it nonetheless. "Right, of course."
"Seriously dude, you good?" I asked. "I mean, dead ex-wife and evil impending vampire arrival aside, that is."
"I'm fine," He said. "Will you be attending the dance tonight, Lucy?"
My eyes quickly shifted to the side. "I don't know. Depends on if Stefan and Damon want to let us out of our safehouse. And if Stefan will let me go through his collection of dead relatives' clothing."
"Right." He nodded. "Do me a favor and send what's-her-face in here, would you? I'd like to thank her for assisting me today."
"Dana?" I said, and shook my head. He knew her name. I knew he knew her name. It just slipped his mind. "On it."
Elena accosted me in the lunch line to pester me about the dance again.
"It's up to Stefan," I said.
"Stefan?" She asked, grabbing an orange that I knew damn well she wasn't going to eat with her lunch. It would definitely end up at the bottom of her backpack, meant to be a snack but forgotten about until the skin got all dried out and weird.
"I certainly don't own any sixties attire, but I'm sure your hoarder boyfriend has some in all those boxes of his," I explained, "I pitched the idea of him letting us borrow clothes, but he won't commit."
"He's not a hoarder, stuff just accumulates when generations of family live in the same house," She said, "Whatever. C'mon, let's go sit with Jeremy. I haven't gotten to see him as much since, you know."
Right. I wasn't sure how much of her staying with Stefan was for protection and how much of it was due to the tension with Jenna, but the end result was the same. Elena slid into the seat between Jeremy and Bonnie, and I sat on the other side of Bonnie.
"Sorry to crash your lunch date," Elena said to Bonnie. "But I've barely seen this one all week."
"You're not crashing anything." Jeremy grabbed his crumpled up napkins and threw them onto his lunch tray. "I was just leaving. My lunch period is almost over."
Elena watched him go before looking at Bonnie with wide eyes. "What was that about?"
"I think he's just a little mad that you and Jenna both left him at the house with John," Bonnie replied, with her mouth pressed into a thin line. Was she mad at Elena too? I thought she preferred to play Switzerland when it came to Elena and Jeremy's fights.
"Not everyone is warming up to John as quickly as you are, Elena," I teased her.
She sighed. "Maybe some miracle will happen and Jenna will forgive me and all of our other problems will just magica—oh hey Dana!"
"If it isn't the star of third-period history." I said, to greet the girl who had just walked up to our table. "Mr. Saltzman better have given you extra credit or like, an automatic pass on all your homework for the rest of the year when you went to talk to him."
"What?" She blinked at me, her eyes looking almost as vacant as Ric's were when he tried to recall his lesson plan this morning. "Oh, right, yes. But I'm actually here to talk to Elena."
"O-kay." Elena said. My expression surely mirrored hers. Dana usually wasn't this perky.
Dana leaned towards Elena and bounced her knees. "This is going to sound freaky, but this totally hot guy just asked me to ask you if you're going to the dance tonight."
"Tell him she has a boyfriend," Bonnie said.
"You could at least meet him." Dana paid Bonnie no attention. "He'll be at the dance tonight. Look for him. His name is Klaus."
"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Elena asked.
"His name is Klaus." Dana repeated, and I immediately stood up. "I know the name's stupid, but I swear he's hot."
"Dana, when did you talk to him? Is he here, at the school?" I asked. "This is super important. Can you describe what he looks like?"
"I— I'm not sure," Dana stammered.
"What do you mean you're not—"
Bonnie grabbed my arm to silence me. "She's been compelled."
Dana snapped back into her energetic facade. "He wants to know if you'll save him the last dance. How cute is that?"
As soon as Dana walked off, Elena stood up too.
"Where are you going?" I asked her.
"To find Stefan," She replied, "Looks like we're taking a half day."
After Stefan compelled the secretary to have us excused from the rest of our classes for what must have been at least the sixteenth time this year, we retreated back to the Salvatore house. We didn't even sit down; all of us stood in the living room as we filled Damon in. He had been waiting there from the moment that Stefan called him and told him that Klaus had shown himself. Sort of.
"This isn't the worst thing," Damon said with the optimism he only showed when things were really bad. "He's announced himself, we finally know where he's going to be. So we go to the dance, and we find him."
"Really? How are we going to do that?" Stefan asked. "We don't even know what he looks like."
"According to Dana he's hot," I offered up. "We'll at least be able to rule out like, half of the attendees based on that alone."
"This isn't funny. He compelled somebody at school," Stefan said. "I guess it's not as safe as you guys thought, huh?"
Just then, Mason entered the house without knocking. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen him, though to be fair it could have been four days ago and still would've felt like it had been months with all that had happened.
"What's he doing here?" Stefan asked Damon.
"I called him after you called me. If Klaus is ready to meet, we need all hands on deck."
"All it took was an impending crisis for you to hang out with us," I said to Mason.
"I've been focused on Tyler, the first few transitions are the hardest," Mason said. "But if you guys need muscle, I'm here."
Someone knocked on the door, and a moment later Ric let himself in. We might as well just invite Klaus here, seeing as we practically had enough people in the living room for this to pass as a school dance.
"There you are," Damon said.
"Sorry I'm late," Ric replied.
"He's running a bit slow today." I put my hand over my mouth to stage-whisper to Damon. "Hungover."
"I am not— oh bugger off." Ric said.
"Bugger off?" I repeated. "Forgive me. Maybe he really isn't hungover, he just stayed up all night watching Downton Abbey."
Ric glared at me. I should have noticed that his stare held more sinister malice than playful exasperation.
"Enough. Ric, buddy, I'm actually gonna need you to make your way back to school so you can put me and Mason down as a chaperones for the dance tonight." Damon informed us.
"Both of you?" Ric asked.
"Klaus made his first move," Damon said. "The higher the supernatural bodyguard to human ratio, the better."
"How many humans do we really need there?" Stefan asked.
"Elena." Damon pointed to her. "Because duh. Bonnie is human-ish, still not really sure where witches fall on the whole species spectrum. Alaric, because even if this guy allegedly can't be killed it still can't hurt to have a vampire hunter in our midst, honestly he probably falls more into the 'bodyguard' category. And Lucy, because who knows at what point her wonder-twin senses are going to get activated, so it's better if we can keep an eye on her."
"That's if we believe Katherine;" I didn't argue my attendance of the dance. No way in hell would I be sitting at home while everyone else stakes out Klaus. "She was playing us, who knows if literally anything she told us was true.
"I believe her," Damon said. "I've never seen you act more stupid than you do when you think Elena's in danger.
"Gee, thanks. Sorry I actually care about my family, you should try it sometime," I glared at him.
"I believe it too," Mason added. "On account of you've punched me twice and it only hurt when Elena's life was on the line."
"Exactly." Damon said.
I shrugged. "Maybe it was just adrenaline." My protest sounded as weak as it felt. From the moment Katherine had first told me what I allegedly was, it had made sense. But I didn't want it to be true. Not because I didn't want to protect Elena, no, but because if everything else Katherine said was true that meant after all these years Klaus has been alive, I wouldn't be strong enough to. It was worse to know that I was supposed to be able to help but no longer was.
"Okay, so we find him and then what, hmm?" Elena changed the subject. "What's our plan of attack?"
"Me." Bonnie piped up. "I'm the plan. He has no idea how much power I can channel. If you can find him, I can kill him."
"You really think it's going to be that easy?" Ric asked. "I mean, he is the biggest, baddest vampire around."
"I never said it would be easy," Bonnie countered. "But I can take down anyone who comes at me. I can kill him, Elena, I know I can."
I had to agree with Ric, though "Why would he tell us exactly where he's going to be? He has to know Elena wouldn't face him alone. What if it's a trap?" I asked.
"He told us because he's a pompous dick who thinks he can't be killed." Damon said. "He wouldn't care if the entire Roman army showed up behind Elena. But he doesn't know what we know."
Bonnie nodded. "It doesn't matter if it's a trap for us if we're also setting one for him. He wants Elena to save him the last dance? I'll make sure this will be his last dance."
"Good." Damon clapped his hands together. "Now that that's settled, we all have a dance to get ready for." He pointed to Alaric. "You. Back to school. Time to slip into the teacher's lounge and put our names on the chaperone list."
Ric nodded to Damon, only sparing the rest of us a glance before making his exit.
"I'm out of here too. Gotta go scrounge up something to wear. Unless you'd be willing to lend me one of your leather jackets for the greaser look?" Mason asked Damon. Damon answered his hopeful plying by sneering down at him over his scrunched nose.
"Speaking of outfits…" I looked at Stefan. "We never finished our conversation earlier."
Stefan chuckled. "You're welcome to look through and borrow anything you want."
I pumped my fist before grabbing Elena's hand to pull her upstairs. A win's a win. Elena paused before we left the room.
"Bonnie?" She asked Bonnie to join us, automatically volunteering his wardrobe to another person.
Bonnie shook her head. "I've had my outfit planned for days. I consulted with Grams. But you guys at least try to have some fun getting ready. I'll see you there, okay?"
Elena showed me to Stefan's bedroom closet,which, as it turned out, had access to the attic, which explained how his room had essentially become overflow. Curated overflow, as he apparently put it.
"Okay, so what do you think?" Elena held up two dresses for my approval. "Twiggy or sexy hippy?"
"Hmm," I twisted my mouth in consideration before a black and white dress in the box behind her caught my eye. I grabbed it, and just as I thought it had a similar silhouette to the orange and pink dress Elena was holding. "What about twin Twiggys?"
"Oh that's perfect," She replied.
"Now, what are the odds Stefan has two pairs of go-go boots in a size eight?" I pondered.
"Greater than you might think," Stefan said as he entered the room. He made a beeline for the closet before emerging with a box he added to the growing pile on the bed. "Take a look at those."
I squealed when I looked in the box. Shoes. Tons of patent leather, mostly in black and white with a few pops of color here and there, and tucked to the side folded on top of themselves…
"Score." I held up two pairs of go-go boots, one white and one pale pink. Elena smiled. The pink pair matched the neckline of the dress she had chosen perfectly. "Are we lucky or what?"
Our faces fell at the same time.
"Let's hope our luck doesn't run out tonight," said Elena.
"Hey, none of that," Stefan said. "If you don't want to do this, say the word."
Elena shook her head. "No. I'm not running. I just…wish things were different."
"They will be." Stefan stepped forward to hug her. "After tonight."
When I went back downstairs after getting dressed and attempting to do something vaguely era-appropriate with my hair, my heart nearly stopped in my chest as I descended the steps. Damon had changed into a white t-shirt and black leather jacket. Something so simple had no business looking that good on anyone.
He looked up at me and his mouth fell open into a gaping half smile as he tilted his head.
"You just reminded me why I loved the sixties." His eyes trailed from my very teased hair to the hemline of my dress and the expanse of skin it left before the tops of my boots. "That's when everything started to get fun."
I bit back a smile as I descended the remaining steps. "I see you stole Mason's idea and went greaser."
"But of course." He tugged on the front panels of the jacket for show. "Not like it's that much of a change from my usual."
"You look nice," I said decidedly.
His lighthearted stare quickly became solemn, as if my compliment was the most serious thing in the world.
"And you look beautiful." He replied, before forcing the smile back to his face and stepping closer to me. "Far too beautiful to be seen dancing with a low-life greaser like me. But I'm still going to ask you to dance anyway." He took another step, and ghosted his hand over my lower back. "May I?" He whispered.
I swallowed. It would be far too easy to fall back into this, to fall back into him. But nothing was easy right now.
"Let's just get through tonight first." I breathed out.
He nodded and removed his hand as he took a step back.
"I'll wait for you in the car?" He offered.
When I agreed, he made his way to the front door.
"But Damon?" I called after him.
"Yes?"
"I'll say yes," I said, "To dancing."
When we arrived at the dance (approximately sixty seconds before Stefan and Elena did, due to Damon's erratic driving) Bonnie and Jeremy were already outside. Damon stopped walking towards them.
"What?" I asked, stopping alongside him. "What is it?"
Bonnie hugged Jeremy, and Damon narrowed his eyes before shaking his head.
"Nothing," He replied. "They're just having a moment. Didn't want to interrupt."
As if she felt his gaze on her, Bonnie opened her eyes and immediately locked eyes with Damon. She pulled away from Jeremy, and then Stefan and Elena walked up behind us so we all went inside.
Mason found us shortly after we entered the gym. His outfit was almost identical to Damon's, with a lighter pair of jeans.
"See?" Damon clapped Mason on his leather-clad shoulder. "You didn't need to borrow one of my jackets."
Mason gave him a brittle smile. "Right. Lucky my dead brother used to dress like you when he was in high school. All I had to do was dredge through the basement of the Lockwood Manor, a place no human should ever go, by the way."
"Lucky you're not human," Damon replied.
Mason glared at Damon and fell towards the back of the line as we milled further into the crowd. Elena scanned all the faces we passed, searching for anyone she didn't know.
Admittedly, the gym looked amazing. The dance committee, aka Caroline, must have commissioned the art department for help, as the room was lined with paintings of peace signs and flowers and even a volkswagen bus. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, and from it a bunch of streamers and string lights, giving the whole room a tent-like effect.
"Thanks for being here, everybody." A voice said from the stage.
All of us stopped walking. I looked across all the students and balloons to find the voice. It was Dana.
"We have a special shout-out tonight," Dana said, "This is for Elena. From Klaus."
This is dedicated…this is dedicated…this is dedicated to the one I love…
The room resumed moving around us as the overly-devoted love song started to play. People danced and thousands of tiny lights reflected from the disco ball, spinning and spinning. Not one iota of it looked out of place, nothing except for Dana's doll-like smile, which probably only looked plastered on because I knew she had been compelled.
"Lame." Damon said. "He's just trying to bait us."
"I know everyone here," Elena echoed my thoughts, though from her the sentiment held more conviction. Her mental catalogue of the whole student body was reliable, seeing as it had remained vastly unchanged since she was in kindergarten.
"Maybe he's not here. Just wants us to believe that he is," Stefan suggested.
"It's a party, people. Blend. Let him come to us." Damon said, noting how we were the only ones in the room wearing deer in the headlights expressions.
"Good idea." Bonnie agreed and grabbed Jeremy's arm.
Jeremy protested. "No, no, I really don't feel like dancing."
"Too bad." She dragged him behind her.
"He used Dana," I said.
"What?" Elena asked.
"He compelled Dana again. He's using her, only her."
"So?" Said Damon. "One student is less messy than seven. He probably figured he found someone who wasn't on vervain, why take his chances with anyone else?"
"Exactly. We should keep an eye on her. Maybe she'll go off somewhere to meet with him, maybe he's not done with her." I explained.
Stefan nodded. "It's a good idea."
"Not like we have anything else to go off of," Mason agreed.
"Okay. Do not let Dana leave this room without one of us following her. I'm sure we'll notice if the thousand-year-old-creep chooses to enter the high school gymnasium to talk to her." Damon said, before his attention drifted away from us. "There's Ric. I'll be right back, gotta fill him in."
Elena faced the main entrance. "Caroline's here. We have to tell her what's going on."
"I'm on it," Stefan replied. "Stay with them." He half-asked half-ordered Mason before making his way over to Caroline and Matt.
"Let's go get drinks." Elena didn't give Mason and I the opportunity to agree, she just walked to the drink table.
Any other night I would have tried to convince Damon or Mason to spike the punch, but not tonight. Tonight we needed to have our senses about us, more so than any other night in Mystic Falls.
By the time Stefan found us, I had completely lost sights on Damon, and subsequently on Ric. Or so I thought. Just as I handed Stefan a rainbow tye-dye cup of fruit punch, Ric walked up to us, slightly frazzled.
"Hey Mason," He said, "I just got word from one of the chaperones that Tyler's trying to pick a fight with some of the junior varsity guys. I know he can't trigger his werewolf curse twice, but…"
"Damnit." Mason looked around. "Where is he?"
"South hallway, last I heard."
"I'm on it."
Ric watched him leave. "I suppose I should go and try to assist him, seeing as it is my job and all."
So Mason and Alaric were gone. Dana still lingered close to the stage, though whether it was just to keep an eye on the DJ or because she had another Klaus-influenced announcement to make, I couldn't tell. I crumpled my empty cup and threw it away.
"Is Damon dancing with Bonnie?" Elena asked.
Stefan and I both whipped our heads in the same direction as Elena's, and sure enough, Damon and Bonnie were twirling hand in hand. A respectable distance apart, but together all the same.
"That's new." My tone stayed lighthearted, though I couldn't help but feel a bit jealous, even though I knew it was silly. Bonnie was with Jeremy, and even if she wasn't, neither she nor Damon had ever shown any interest in knowing each other beyond the amicable relationship required by the circumstances of our lives. Still, he said he would dance with me tonight.
"Hey Jer." Elena grabbed Jeremy as he tried to sneak past us and nodded towards Bonnie and Damon. "What are they up to?"
"Who knows?" Jeremy groaned.
"Is there something going on, Jer?" Elena asked. "You okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine." He said, sounding anything but fine.
"Something's up with him." Elena said to Stefan and I as Jeremy slipped away. "Other than the obvious. But he won't talk to me."
"Want me to try?" I offered. "I'm sort of like the non-sister older sister. Maybe he'll see me as good cop."
"Go ahead." Elena craned her neck to keep her eyes on Jeremy. "Is he…leaving the gym? I thought we all agreed we wouldn't go off on our own."
"I'll add a gentle scolding to my inquiry," I said.
Elena elbowed Stefan and nodded to me.
"Oh right. I'll go with you. I'll hang back, but I'll be close enough in case anything happens." He kissed Elena's forehead. "Go catch up with Bonnie and Damon, okay?"
When the door to the gym slammed shut behind us, it instantly drowned out all of the noise from the dance. I hurried to catch up with Jeremy.
"Jeremy! Hey!" I caught sight of him as I turned around the corner. "What's going on? It's better if we all stay in the gym."
"Did you know?" He turned on his heels and stalked towards me. "Did you know?"
"D-did I know what?" I stammered, caught off guard by just how much anger his yell carried.
"If Bonnie channels all that power, it could kill her," He said. "I know you'd do just about anything to save Elena. Trust me, I would too. But this…"
"We have to stop her." My voice came out a raspy whisper. I spared a glance to my left, where Stefan stood frozen in the main hallway.
Elena would never be okay with this. Hell, I wasn't okay with this. Losing Bonnie would devastate all of us, we couldn't just write her off as another casualty in the war against Klaus. She might be okay with risking her life to save Elena's, but that didn't mean we were.
That was just it though. She was risking her life to save Elena's. Which meant if she didn't…
"If we stop her, Klaus could kill Elena," Jeremy said, voicing my thoughts. "So what am I supposed to do?"
"We find another way." Stefan said, revealing his presence to Jeremy. "Okay? No one's letting anyone die. Let's get back in there and sort this out."
I kept one hand on Stefan's shoulder in front of me and one hand extended behind me to hold onto Jermey's sleeve as we meandered back into the dance and through the crowd. We found Damon twirling Bonnie and Elena, with one of them laughing on each arm. If Stefan found this sight disturbing, he didn't let on. Or maybe his body had already reached maximum capacity for the amount of tension it could hold.
Elena bumped into Stefan, halting her dance. She noted his face first, then mine, then Jeremy's.
"What is it?" She asked.
I cupped my hand around my mouth so no dance-goers would hear as I murmured into Elena's ear. A vampire could still hear me, though, and I locked eyes with Damon as I relayed what Jeremy had revealed. The lack of shock, or any reaction at all from him became utterly apparent to me as Elena gasped.
It became apparent to Stefan as well. He glared at Damon, his face set in stone as Elena rippled around him, pleading with Bonnie to give her some other explanation.
Bonnie shook her head and took Elena by the hand to guide her away from the crowd to somewhere where they could speak freely. As if any combination of words would cause Elena to concede her best friend's life in exchange for her own.
"Aren't one of you going to go with them?" Jeremy asked, interrupting Stefan and Damon's silent standoff.
"Why?" Damon replied. "If Klaus shows up, Bonnie will take him down, and it will save you all from having to pretend to be up in arms about her saving Elena's life."
"How can you even say that?" I asked. "Bonnie could die."
"And how many people could die if Bonnie doesn't take him down?" Damon shot back. "I get it. Nobody likes a trolley problem. But somebody has to step up and actually solve it."
"Screw this." Jeremy shoved past both of them.
"Hold on, Jeremy! Wait!" Stefan called after him.
"Everything alright here?" Alaric asked.
I whipped my head to the left to look at him. In all the commotion he had snuck up unnoticed.
"Oh, you know teenagers," Damon said, "Always with the mood swings."
"I'm going to go make sure he's okay. You—" Stefan snapped at Damon " —Come on. We are not done talking about this." Nevermind that they hadn't even really started talking about it.
Damon obeyed, sparing me one glance that looked a lot more apologetic than he had sounded before following Stefan, leaving me with Alaric.
"So," Ric rocked back onto his heels. "What's going on?"
"I-I don't know." I admitted. "The plan might be off."
"What happened?"
"Bonnie might not be able to kill Klaus," I said. "Well, she can, but it could kill her. I guess they're talking about it."
"Talking about what?" He asked.
Such a good question. What was there to talk about? If Elena's life was worth more than Bonnie's? If we wanted to risk the harm Klaus might do if we stalled him while looking for another option? If it was Bonnie's choice to make for herself?
My head spun a little bit. The lights reflecting off the disco ball weren't helping the sensation. I knew what I'd do. I'd give my life up a thousand times over to save Elena's, even if it wasn't wired in my bones like Katherine said. I knew from experience I'd rather be the one mourned than the one mourning.
"I'm not really sure." My voice sounded far away, like it was an afterthought to the overly-upbeat music. I followed the reflections from the ball, letting my stare go in and out of focus in sync with the music. "Is that Dana?" I asked.
"Yes, it is." Ric confirmed, after he followed my gaze.
"She's leaving," I said, snapping back to attention. "Ric, she could be meeting Klaus. We have to follow her."
He hesitated, and I couldn't blame him. We wouldn't be getting the jump on him anymore, not without losing Bonnie in the process. But even just knowing what he looked like was better than nothing, and that was all we had right now— nothing.
"Fine." He conceded with a nod. "I'll call Stefan and Damon."
In the hallway, we kept our distance from Dana, though given that she didn't so much as glance our way when the doors to the gym slammed shut behind us, she must have been under some heavy compulsion.
"Dammit. My phone signal is always spotty in this hallway," Ric said. "Can I use yours?"
"Sure." I pulled my phone out from where I had it tucked in my boot, barely glancing at him as I passed it back.
I tiptoed so my square heels wouldn't announce our presence. The further we got away from the gym, the less plausible it was that we just happened to be in the same place as Dana. I stopped at the last corner she turned at, only peering around to keep an eye on her while Ric filled Damon in over the phone.
"Yep. North hallway. Mhmm." Ric said before hanging up. "They're on the way."
"Great," I replied. Dana took another turn. "She went right," I said. "The only thing that way is the stoner pit, that has to be where he is."
"Why are you whispering?" Ric asked in a voice that wasn't exactly not mocking my whisper.
"He's old as hell which means he's strong as hell. For all we know he can hear us from the other side of the school." I kept staring around the corner, as if I would suddenly develop the ability to see through walls if I looked hard enough.
"Right. If that were the case, don't you think it would've become a problem by now?" He asked. "Why don't we stop in my classroom while we wait for Stefan and Damon?"
"Good idea," I said. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture Klaus standing in the stoner pit. A thousand-year-old being has no business lurking in the graffiti-laden hangout spot of the most degenerate teenagers in Mystic Falls. "We can stock up on vervain grenades."
"Vervain grenades…" Ric furrowed his brow as he crossed the hallway to his classroom. "Not sure that's the best idea."
He was right, purely on the grounds that we had no good ideas left.
Ric opened the locked closet behind his desk and rummaged through the contents. He didn't keep much in there, only things he could easily hide. When he shut the door again, I peered at his weapon of choice.
"A stake?" I asked. "We don't even know how long it took for Elijah to wake up after Stefan and Damon staked him." At least with the vervain it would be pretty easy to gauge how incapacitated he was.
Ric stilled. He ran his left hand up and down the smooth wood of the stake as his right hand held it in place before flipping it and tucking it into his waistband. Slowly, almost robotically, he turned towards me. When he finally looked up at me, half of his mouth twisted up into a smirk that skipped his eyes, which remained cold even as his eyebrows raised.
"My brother was here?" He asked.
"Your bro— what?" I said. Even as I asked, I already knew. Something worse than adrenaline washed over my body as everything clicked into place far, far too late. "Klaus."
His smile grew when I said his name. He didn't need to feign the kindness of my history teacher anymore, and not one ounce of kindness remained in his bared teeth. He loved this. He had been waiting for this moment. This was a game to him.
I wouldn't play.
I grabbed the rolling chair behind his— behind Alaric's desk, and I flung it between me and him before dashing towards the door. Only he had the chair flung out of his way and my wrist in his grasp before I could even take more than three steps.
"Don't even think about it." He slammed his forearm into my throat, pinning me against the chalkboard. "I may be limited by this body but you are still just a little girl."
"Where is Elena?" I tried to sound unphased, though I undoubtedly failed as I struggled against him.
"Oh she's perfectly safe this evening, I made sure of it."
"What did you do to Alaric?" I asked.
"Don't worry about him, sweetheart. I'm just borrowing his body," He said. "It's an old trick of mine, really. Though I am a bit out of practice. I thought for sure I'd given myself away, what with asking you to send Dana into my classroom and all. But Katerina was right," He jammed his arm against me, forcing out a cough. "You really are far too trusting."
"K-Katherine's alive?" I sputtered.
He cocked his head to the side. "For now."
It was almost funny how badly I needed Ric when he was technically standing right in front of me. I couldn't remember anything he had taught me about fighting a vampire— not that I really was fighting a vampire— so I kicked at Klaus and clawed at his arm without strategy. None of it seemed to phase him. All I was doing was hurting Ric's body.
He leaned against me, trapping my legs and forcing me to stop kicking. "But enough about her. What's this about Elijah being in town?"
"He's gone."
He chuckled in a dark tone that I had never before heard come out of Ric's mouth. "Of course he is. I bet he left the moment he realized you weren't who he'd hoped you were."
"Nikolina," I said, not bothering to clarify that Elijah hadn't actually left town. Dead, daggered, on a trip across the ocean, what difference did it make? He wasn't here. I knew with no uncertainty, as Klaus restrained me while possessing the body of one of the people I thought I could always trust, that if I hadn't driven that dagger into Elijah's heart, I wouldn't be in this position right now.
"My, my, we do know our history, don't we?" He loomed over me. "I knew if I didn't leave a body the possibility that she might still be alive would haunt him for centuries. But I'll let you in on a little secret, since you won't be able to tell anyone." He leaned in even closer, which I wouldn't have thought was even possible until he actually did it. The scruff of his borrowed face brushed against my cheek as he whispered in my ear. "I actually killed her."
I stilled. He looked proud as he pulled away. Relieved, even, as if he actually enjoyed finally being able to relay this secret to someone.
"W-why?" I asked.
"The same reason I'm going to kill you," He replied. "She was made to spite me."
So it was true.
I elbowed him in the chest as hard as I could. It was enough to make him falter, enough to give me the opportunity to slip out of his grasp. I grabbed the stake that was still hanging out of the back of his waistband because it felt better than carrying nothing andI ran.
My hand was on the doorknob when he caught me, first by the back of my dress and then by my hair once his tug made me stumble backwards a bit. I elbowed him again, but the jab against the flesh of his side didn't have the same effect as hitting his sternum did.
"I'll be taking that, thank you."
He wrapped his other arm around my front, clutching my waist and plucking the stake out of my hand all in one. He tugged on my hair until I had no choice but to lean my head back against his shoulder. His chest rose and fell in harsh, quick succession.
"You see, you were right about one thing, sweetheart," He said, as he dragged me backwards. "This was a trap. Tonight isn't the full moon and therefore I have no use for Elena at the present moment. Tonight is all about getting rid of those who would stand in my way."
He spun me around and slammed my back against the closet door, this time choosing to hold me by the throat with his left hand. It hurt more this time, agitating where bruises were surely starting to form from his forearm.
"I'm not a threat to you." I said. "Look at me. You're in a human body and I can't even fight you."
With a small pout, he tilted his head to the side. "Come now, I'm still a bit stronger than your average human. You can't put a thousand-year-old essence inside a meager man and expect it not to have any effect at all. Can you really not tell?" He shook his head. "Nevermind that though. As I already said, your Elena is perfectly safe this evening. So you're not really giving it your all, are you? You're not even capable."
Of course he was right. Everything I felt— the adrenaline, the fear, the fight in me— didn't compare at all to the night of the Masquerade ball when I thought Elena was dying. I may have gotten lucky with giving him an unexpected reminder of how it feels to have the wind knocked out of you when you're in a body that actually needs air, but I couldn't put up a real fight. Not if it was only to save myself.
"Katerina does have this interesting theory though, that I've of course gotten stronger over the years and you, well—" He looked me up in down "—you're no stronger than your first iteration was."
He tightened his grip on my throat, just to really drive the point home. I balled my hands into fists and hit at his arms, but just like before he barely registered the impact.
"You know, just between you and me, I think she's actually a bit fond of you," He continued. "She was trying awfully hard to convince me that you weren't worth my time."
His gaze drifted upwards, wistful as though he were actually considering her words for a moment. It was all for show.
"Nonetheless." He shrugged. "You were made to spite me."
He plunged the stake into my abdomen with all the effort it would take me to cut into a slightly-too-frozen pat of butter. When he stepped away, he once again looked proud. When I tried to step after him, I found I couldn't. He had driven the stake straight through me and into the closet door, leaving me pinned like one of those bugs in that museum back home I always hated to go to.
"There we go," He said. "Now, what do we think will happen first: you bleeding out? Or your friends realizing that you're missing? I reckon Damon's not so concerned with you these days, is he? And, well, Elena is obviously everyone's primary concern of the evening, just as I'd arranged."
He sauntered in a semicircle around me to admire his handiwork. My mouth hung open as I gasped and it took everything in me not to scrunch my eyes shut from the pain, but I refused to look away from him.
Once he reached Alaric's desk, he gave one nod of satisfaction. Then he pulled my phone, which I had long since forgotten, out of his pocket.
"Tell you what." He set the phone on the corner of the desk. "I'll leave this here for you, so you'll know the exact moment they start to look for you. If you're still conscious, that is. But I wouldn't hold your breath, sweetheart. I've got a witch to go and deal with, and I've got a feeling that won't be as easy as this was."
"She'll kill you." I managed to gasp out.
"She might kill Mr. Saltzman." He corrected me, as unbothered as ever, and began to pace back and forth in front of me. "Plenty of other bodies for me to jump into if she does. Or maybe I'll just hop back into my own. In a thousand years no one else has managed to kill me." He stopped to stare me down, his eyes dark and determined as I gritted my teeth. "I like my odds."
A tear forced its way out of my eye. I had tried to hold it in— he already had enough of my misery to relish in— but I just couldn't. The piece of wood beneath my rib cage was far too prominent and my flesh far too torn for me to hide my pain.
He stepped closer, and raised his hand to my face to wipe the tears away.
"There, there. All will be right in the world soon," He said. "'Till we meet again."
And then he left me in Alaric's classroom, alone and bleeding. Maybe Stefan and Damon had already gotten back to the gym and realized we were missing. Maybe Damon would be here any second, and we could all go home and figure out what to do. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I couldn't bet my life on maybe.
I knew I wasn't supposed to pull it out. That's what they always did in scary movies— pull the knife out of the stab wound right before gushing blood and bleeding to death. But maybe I could get it unstuck from the door and then I could go find help. Preferably of the vampire variety.
I wrapped both hands around the protruding end of the stake and pulled. I tried to move my body at the same time as it, I really did, but—
"Ngh god!"
The blood was spreading faster around the stake. The dress looked like that one elementary school joke about a penguin in a blender. What's black and white and red all over? Stefan's dress after he lends it to me and Klaus stabs me while possessing my history teacher's body.
I laughed. It quickly turned into a cough,
I tried to rack my brain for anything, episodes of Grey's Anatomy or forgotten first aid classes that would tell me what vital organs Klaus might have punctured (I had a strong feeling from all my gasping that he had damaged a lung) or how much blood I could lose without dying before I realized it didn't matter.
I closed my eyes. Only it didn't feel peaceful. Even in the blackness, the pain emanated from my side. Each time I tried to truly fall away, there it was to hold me up. A stake pierced through my chest, though not through my heart. No, that would have been too easy. Too instantaneous. Klaus wanted me to suffer for the very crime of being born.
Eventually, though, eventually I was able to slip further away from the pain. Between my waning whimpers, the sound of my heartbeat echoing in my ears overtook any other sensory input my body received. As it slowed, it almost felt melodic. Comforting, even. Pound. Pound. Pound.
This was so silly. I hadn't danced with Damon earlier. Hadn't even let him keep his hand on my back, when I missed his hands on me so, so bad. I had just wanted to deal with Klaus first. But no, Klaus had dealt with me. Next he was going to deal with Bonnie, and then, when the full moon came, he was going to deal with Elena. And I hadn't even danced with Damon earlier.
My head fell forward. My eyes stayed closed.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.