The Vampire Diaries #7: Midnight (The Return Trilogy #3) (2011)

Chapter 40

But after an endless time in the soft, kind darkness, something was forcing Elena back up into light. Real light.

Not the terrible green half-light of the Tree. Even through shut eyelids she could see it, feel its heat. A yellow sun. Where was she? She couldn't remember.

And she didn't care. Something was saying inside her that the gentle darkness was better. But then she remembered a name.

Stefan.

Stefan was...?

Stefan was the one who...the one she loved. But he'd never understood that love was not singular. He'd never understood that she could be in love with Damon and that it would never change an atom's worth of her love for him. Or that his lack of understanding had been so wrenching and painful that she had felt torn into two different people at times.

But now, even before she opened her eyes, she realized that she was drinking. She was drinking the blood of a vampire, and that vampire wasn't Stefan. There was something unique in this blood. It was deeper and spicier and more heavy, all at once.

She couldn't help opening her eyes. For some reason she didn't understand, they flew open and she tried immediately to focus on the scent and feeling and color of whoever was bending over her, holding her.

She couldn't understand, either, her sense of letdown when she slowly realized that it was Sage leaning over her, holding her gently but securely to his neck, with his bronze chest bare and warm from the sunlight.

But she was lying down flat, on grass, from what her hands could feel...and for some reason her head was cold. Very cold.

Cold and wet.

She stopped drinking and tried to sit up. The light grip became firmer. She heard Sage's voice say, and felt the rumbling in his chest as he said it, "Ma pauvre petite, you must drink more in a moment or so. And your hair has Still some of the ashes in it."

Ashes? Ashes? Didn't you put ashes on your head for...now what had she been thinking about? It was as if there was a block in her mind, keeping her from getting close to...

something. But she wasn't going to be told what to do.

Elena sat up.

She was in - yes, she was very sure - the kitsune paradise, and until a moment ago her body had been arched back, so that her hair had been in the clear little stream that she had seen earlier. Stefan and Bonnie had been washing something pitch-black out of her hair. They both were smudged with black as well: Stefan had a big swath across one cheekbone, and Bonnie had faint gray streaks below her eyes.

Crying. Bonnie had been crying. She was Still crying, in little sobs that she was trying to suppress. And now that Elena looked harder she could see that Stefan's eyelids were swollen and that he had been crying too.

Elena's lips were numb. She fell back onto the grass, looking up at Sage, who was wiping his eyes furtively. Her throat ached, not just inside, where sobbing and gasping might make it hurt, but outside, too. She had a picture of herself slashing at her own neck with a knife.

Through her numb lips, she whispered, "Am I a vampire?"

"Pas encore,"Sage said unsteadily. "Not yet. But Stefan and I, we both had to give you massive amounts of blood. You must be very careful in the next days. You are right on the brink."

That explained how she felt. Probably Damon was hoping that she would become one, wicked boy. Instinctively, she held out her hand to Stefan. Maybe she could help him.

"We just won't do anything for a little while,"she said. "You don't have to be sad."But she herself Still felt very wrong. She hadn't felt this wrong since she'd seen Stefan in prison and had thought that he would die at any moment.

No...it was worse...because with Stefan there had been hope and Elena had the feeling that now hope was gone.

Everything was gone. She was hollow: a girl who looked solid, but whose insides were missing.

"I'm dying,"she whispered. "I know it...Are you all going to say good-bye now?"

And with that Sage - Sage! - choked up and began to sob.

Stefan, Still looking so oddly mussed, with those traces of soot on his face and arms and his hair and clothes soaking wet, said, "Elena, you're not going to die. Not unless you choose to."

She had never seen Stefan look like this before. Not even in prison. His flame, his inner fire that he showed to almost no one but Elena, had gone out.

"Sage saved us,"he said, slowly careful y, as if it cost him great effort to speak. "The ash that was falling - you and Bonnie would have died if you'd had to breathe any more of it. But Sage put a door back to the Gatehouse right in front of us. I could barely see it; my eyes were so full of ashfall , and it's only getting worse on that moon."

"Ashfall ,"Elena whispered. There was something at the bottom of her mind, but once again her memory failed her. It was almost as if she'd been Influenced to not remember. But that was ridiculous.

"Why were ashes falling?"she asked, realizing that her voice was husky, hoarse - as if she'd cheered too long at a football game.

"You used Wings of Destruction,"Stefan said steadily, looking at her with his swollen eyes. "You saved our lives. But you killed the Tree - and the star ball disintegrated."

Wings of Destruction. She must have lost her temper. And she'd killed a world. She was a murderer.

And now the star ball was lost. Fell's Church. Oh, God. What would Damon say to her? Elena had done everything - everything wrong. Bonnie was sobbing now, her face turned away.

"I'm sorry,"Elena said, knowing how inadequate this was. For the first time she looked around miserably. "Damon?"she whispered. "He won't speak to me? Because of what I did?"

Sage and Stefan looked at each other.

Ice went down Elena's spine.

She started to get up, but her legs weren't the legs she remembered. They wanted to unlock at the knees. She was staring down at herself, at her own wet and smudged clothes - and then something like mud came down her forehead.

Mud or congealing blood.

Bonnie made a sound. She was Still sobbing, but she was speaking, too, in a new husky voice that made her sound much older. "Elena - we didn't get the ashes out of the top of your hair. Sage had to give you an emergency transfusion."

"I'll get the ashes out,"Elena said flatly. She let her knees bend. She fell onto them, jarring her body. Then, twisting, she leaned down to the little brook and let her head fall forward.

Through the icy shock she could dimly hear exclamations from the people above water, and Stefan's sharp, Elena, are you All right? in her head.

No, she thought back. But I'm not drowning, either. I'm washing out my hair. Maybe Damon will at least see me if I'm presentable. Maybe he'll come with us and fight for Fell's Church.

Let me help you up, Stefan sent quietly.

Elena had come to the end of her air. She pulled her heavy head out of the water and flipped it, soaking but clean, so that it fell down her back. She stared at Stefan.

"Why?"she said - and then, with a sudden panic - "Has he left already? Was he angry...with me?"

"Stefan."It was Sage, speaking tiredly. Stefan, who was staring out of his green eyes like a hunted animal, made some faint sound.

"The Influence, it is not working,"Sage said. "She will remember on her own."

Chapter 41

Stefan didn't move or speak for long moments. Elena's heart swelled. Suddenly she was as afraid as he clearly was. She went to him and took both his hands, which were shaking.

Darling, don't cry, she sent. There must still be time to save Fell's Church. There must. It can't end this way. And besides, Shinichi is gone! We can get to the children; we can break the conditioning..." She stopped. It was as if the word "conditioning"echoed in her ears. Stefan's green eyes were filling her vision. Her mind was getting...it was getting fuzzy. Everything was becoming unreal again. In a minute she wouldn't be able to...

She wrenched her eyes away, breathing hard.

"You were Influencing me,"she said. She could hear the anger in her own voice.

"Yes,"Stefan whispered. "I've been Influencing you for half an hour."

How dare you? Elena thought, just for him.

"I'm stopping it...now,"Stefan said quietly.

"As am I,"Sage added, sounding exhausted.

And the universe did a slow spin and Elena remembered what it was that they were all keeping from her.

With a wild sob, she rose, scattering droplets, coming to her feet like an avenging goddess. She looked at Sage. She looked at Stefan.

And Stefan proved how brave he was, how much he loved her. He told her what she already knew. "Damon is gone, Elena. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry if...if I kept you from being with him as much as you wanted to. I'm sorry if I came between you. I didn't understand - how much you loved each other. I do now."And then he dropped his face into his hands.

Elena wanted to go to him. To scold him, to hold him. To tell Stefan that she loved him just as much, drop for drop, grain for grain. But her body had gone numb, and the darkness was threatening again...all she could do was hold out her arms as she crumpled onto the grass. And then somehow Bonnie and Stefan were both there, the three of them al sobbing: Elena with the intensity of new discovery; Stefan with a lost sound that Elena had never heard before; and Bonnie with a dry, wrenching exhaustion that seemed to want to shatter her small body.

Time lost all meaning. Elena wanted to grieve for every moment of Damon's painful death, and for every moment of his life, too. So much had been lost. She couldn't get her head around it, and she didn't want to do anything but cry until the kind darkness took her mind again.

That was when Sage broke.

He grabbed Elena and pulled her up, and shook her by the shoulders. It snapped her head back and forth.

"Your town is in ruins!"he shouted, as if this was her fault.

"Midnight may or may not bring disaster. Oh, yes, I saw it all in your mind when I went in to Influence you. Little Fell's Church is already devastated. And you won't even fight for it!"

Something blazed through Elena. It melted the numbness, the iciness. "Yes, I'll fight for it!" she screamed. "I'll fight for it with every breath in my body, until I stop the people who did it, or until they kill me!"

"And how, puis-je savoir, will you get back in time? By the time you walk back the way you came, it wil al be over!"

Stefan was beside her, bracing her, shoulder to shoulder.

"Then we'll force you to send us some other way - so that we can get back in time!"

Elena stared. No. No. Stefan couldn't have said that. Stefan didn't force his way - and she wouldn't have him changing himself. She whirled back on Sage. "There's no need to fight! I have a Master Key in my backpack, and magic works here inside the Gatehouse!"she cried.

But Stefan and Sage were staring each other down, each fierce and intent. Elena wanted to go to Stefan but the world was doing another of its slow somersaults. She was afraid that Sage would attack Stefan, and that she couldn't even fight for him.

But instead, suddenly, Sage threw back his head and laughed wildly. Or perhaps it was something between thunderous laughing and crying. It was as eerie as the sound of a wolf baying, and Elena felt Bonnie's small , trembling body hug her - to comfort both of them.

"What the hell !"Sage bel owed, and now there was a wild look in his eyes, too. "Mais oui, what the Hell?"He laughed again. "After all , I am the Gatekeeper, and I have already broken the rules by al owing you through two different doors."

Stefan was Still breathing hard. Now he reached out and grabbed Sage by his broad shoulders and shook him with the strength of a vampire gone mad. "What are you talking about? There's no time for talk!"

"Ah, but there is, mon ami. My friend, there is. What you need is the firepower of the heavens to save Fell's Church -

and to undo the damage that has already been done. To wipe it out, to make it as if it had never happened.

And,"Sage added deliberately, looking directly at Elena,

"perhaps - just perhaps - to undo this day's events, also."

Suddenly every inch of Elena's skin was tingling. Her whole body was listening to Sage, leaning toward him, yearning, while her eyes widened with the only other question that mattered.

Sage said, very softly, very triumphantly, "Yes. They can bestow life upon the dead. They have that Power. They can bring back mon petit tyran Damon - as they brought you back."

Stefan and Bonnie were holding Elena up. She couldn't stand on her own.

"But why would they help?"she whispered painful y. She wouldn't al ow herself even a breath of hope, not until she understood everything.

"In exchange for what was stolen from them mil ennia ago,"Sage replied. "You are in a fortress of Hell , you know.

That is what the Gatehouse is. The Guardians cannot enter here. They cannot storm the gate and demand back what is inside...the seven -  pardon, now six - kitsune treasures."

Not a breath of hope. Not a breath. But Elena heard herself give a wild laugh.

"How do we give them a park? Or a field of black roses?"

"We give them the rights to the land that the park and the field of roses lie upon."

Not a breath, even though the bodies on either side of Elena were shaking now. "And how do we offer them the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life?"

"We do not. However, I have here various containers, waiting to be collected as garbage. The threat of a gal on bottle of La Fontaine randomly spread all over your Earth...that would devastate them. And, of course,"Sage added, "I know the kinds of gems with enchantments already upon them that they would most desire. Here, let me open the doors all at once! We take all we can - the rooms, strip them bare!"

His enthusiasm was contagious. Elena half-turned, breath held, eyes widened to catch the first glowing of a door's light.

"Wait."Stefan's voice was hard suddenly. Bonnie and Elena turned back and froze, embracing each other, trembling.

"What is your - your father - going to do to you when he finds out that you al owed this?"

"He will not kill me,"Sage said brusquely, the wild tone back in his voice. "He may even find it as amusant as I do, and we will be sharing a bel y laugh tomorrow."

"And if he doesn't find it amusing? Sage, I don't think...

Damon wouldn't have wanted - "

Sage whirled around and for the first time since she had met him, Elena could believe with her whole soul that he was the son of his father. His eyes had even seemed to change color, to the yellow of a flame, with diamond pupils like a cat's. His voice was like steel splintering, harder even than Stefan's. "What is between my father and me is my own business - mine! Stay here if you want. He never bothers himself about vampires, anyway - he says they're cursed already. But I am going to do everything I can to bring mon cheri Damon back."

"Whatever the cost to you?"

"The hel with the cost!"

To Elena's surprise, Stefan gripped Sage's shoulders for a moment and then simply hugged as much of him as he could hold.

"I just wanted to make sure,"he said quietly. "Thank you, Sage. Thank you."Then he turned and strode over to the Royal Radhika plant, and with one yank, pulled it out of its bower.

Elena, heart beating in her lips and throat and fingertips, ran to gather the empty containers and bottles Sage was tossing out of a ninth doorway that had appeared in between the mine shaft and the field of black roses. She snatched up a gal on container and an Evian water bottle, both with secure caps intact. They were made of plastic, which was good, because she dropped them both just going across the room to the bubbling fountain. Her hands were shaking that badly; and all the time she was sending up a monotonous prayer, Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please!

She got water into both containers at the Fountain and capped them. And then she realized that Bonnie was Still standing in the middle of the Gatehouse. She looked bewildered, frightened.

"Bonnie?"

"Sage?"Bonnie said. "How do we get these things to the Celestial Court to bargain with them?"

"Have no worries,"Sage said kindly. "I am certain that Guardians will be waiting just outside to arrest us. They will take us to the Court."

Bonnie didn't stop trembling, but she nodded and hurried to help Sage get bottles of Black Magic - and break them. "A symbol,"he said. "Un signe of what we will do to this area if the Celestials don't agree. Be careful not to cut your pretty hands."

Elena thought she heard Bonnie's husky voice then, and that it was not a happy tone. But Sage's rumbling murmur was reassuring. And Elena would neither al ow herself to hope nor despair. She had a task in hand, a scheme. She was making private Plans for the Celestial Court.

When she and Bonnie had all the plunder they could carry, and their backpacks were full as Well, when Stefan had two narrow black boxes that held deeds, and when Sage looked like a cross between Santa Claus and a bronzed, gorgeous, long-haired Hercules, as he carried two sacks made of pillowcases, they gave one last look around at the ravaged Gatehouse.

"All right,"Sage said then. "Time to face the Guardians."He smiled reassuringly at Bonnie.

As usual, Sage was right. The moment they came out with their booty, Guardians from two different dimensions were ready for them. The first type were the ones who looked vaguely like Elena: blond hair, dark blue eyes, slender. The Guardians of the Nether World seemed senior to these, and were lithe women with skin so dark it was almost ebony, and hair that curled tightly in a cap over their heads. Behind them were brilliant golden air cars.

"You are under arrest,"one of the dark ones said, not looking as if she enjoyed her job, "for removing treasures that rightful y belong to the Celestial Court out of the sanctuary where it was agreed that they would be kept, under the laws of both our dimensions."

And then it was only a matter of hanging on to the golden air cars while hanging on at the same time to their unlawful booty.

The Celestial Court was...celestial. Pearly white with a faint hint of blue. Minarets. It was a long distance from the heavily guarded gate - where Elena had seen a third type of Guardian, one with short red hair and slanted, piercing green eyes - to the actual palace, which seemed to encompass a city.

But it was when Elena's group was guided to the throne room that the real culture shock hit. It was far larger and far more glorious than any room Elena had ever imagined. No ball or gala in the Dark Dimensions could have prepared her in the least for it. The cathedral ceiling seemed to be made entirely of gold, as were the double line of stately columns that marched vertical y across the floor. The floor itself was of intricately patterned malachite and gold-threaded lapis lazuli, with gold seemingly used as grouting - and with a heavy hand at that. The three golden fountains in the middle of the room (the central one was the largest and most elaborate) threw into the air not water, but delicately perfumed flower petals that sparkled like diamonds in turning at their apex and then floated down again. Stained-glass windows in brilliant colors that Elena couldn't remember ever having seen before threw rainbow light like a benediction from high on every wall, giving warmth to the otherwise cool engraved gold.

Sage and Elena and Stefan and Bonnie were seated in small comfortable chairs just a few feet back from a great dais, draped with a fantastical y woven golden cloth. The treasures were spread out in front of them, as attendants dressed in flowing blue and gold took the objects one by one up to the current ruling triumvirate in back.

The rulers comprised one each of the groups of Guardians - fair, dark, redheaded. Their seats on the dais ensured that they were far from - and high above - their petitioners. But with Power sent to her eyes, Elena could see perfectly well that they each sat on an exquisitely jeweled golden throne. that they each sat on an exquisitely jeweled golden throne.

They were speaking softly together, admiring the Royal Radhika flower - blue delphiniums at the moment. Then the dark one smiled and sent one of her attendants running for a pot with soil for the plant to survive in.

Elena stared sightlessly at the other treasures. A gal on of water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life. Six bottles of unbroken Black Magic wine, and the shards of at least that many around them. A blazing rainbow to rival the stained-glass windows in fist-sized gems, some raw, some already faceted and polished, but most of them not only faceted, but also hand-carved with mysterious gold or silver inscriptions.

Two long, black, velvet-lined boxes with yellowing cylinders of papyrus or paper inside them, one with a pure black rose lying next to it, and the other with a simple spray of light springtime-green leaves. Elena knew what the yellowed documents with their cracked waxen seals were. The deeds to the field of black roses and the kitsune paradise.

When you saw al the treasures together like this, it almost seemed too much, Elena thought. Any one object from any one of the Seven - no, now Six - kitsune Treasures was enough to trade worlds for. One sprig of the Royal Radhika, which was even now being returned, (pink larkspur changing to a white orchid) properly potted again, was immeasurably precious. So was a single velvety black rose, with its power to hold the most powerful of magics. One jewel from the hoard in the mining cavern, maybe a double-fist-sized diamond that put the Star of Africa and the Golden Jubilee to shame. One day in the kitsune paradise, where a day could seem like a perfect lifetime. One sip of that effervescent water that could make a human live as long as the oldest Old One...

Of course there should also have been the largest star ball in existence, full of eldritch Power, but Elena was hoping that the Guardians would overlook that.

Hoping? She wondered and shook her head at nothing, causing Bonnie to squeeze her hand tightly. Not hoping. She didn't dare hope. Not a breath yet.

Another attendant, red-haired, flashing them a cold green-eyed look, picked up the plastic gal on bottle that said Sector 3 Water on the label. Sage rumbled as she left, "Qu'est-ce qui lui prend? I mean, what is her problem? I like the water in the vampire sector. I don't like the pump water in the Nether World."

Elena had already figured out the color code for the Guardians. The blond ones were all business, impatient only with delays. The dark ones were the kindest - maybe there was less work for them to do in the Nether World. The green-eyed redheads were just plain bitchy. Unfortunately, the young woman on the central throne up there on the dais was a redhead.

"Bonnie?"she whispered.

Bonnie had to gulp and sniff before she could get out, "Yes?"

"Have I ever told you how much I like your eyes?"

Bonnie gave her a long brown-eyed gaze before beginning to shake with laughter. At least it started out like laughter, and then Bonnie burrowed her head into Elena's shoulder and simply shook.

Stefan squeezed Elena's hand. "She's been trying so hard - for you. She - she loved him too, you see. I didn't even know that. I guess...I guess I've just been blind on all sides."

He ran his free hand through his already-tousled hair. He looked very young, like a little boy who had been suddenly punished for doing something he hadn't been told was wrong. Elena remembered him in the backyard of the boardinghouse, dancing with her feet on his feet, and then in his attic room, kissing her hands, her knuckles bruised with hammering, the pulsing inside of her wrists. She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be All right, that the laughter would come back to his eyes, but she couldn't stand the chance of lying to him.

Suddenly Elena felt like a very, very old woman, who could hear and see only dimly, whose every movement caused her terrible pain, and who was cold inside. Her every joint and every bone was filled with ice.

At last, when all the treasures, including a sparkling, diamond-set, golden Master Key, had been taken up for the young women on the thrones to handle, heft, examine, and discuss, a warm-eyed dark-skinned woman came to Elena's group. "You may approach Their High Judgments now.

And,"she added in a voice as soft as the stroke of a dragonfly's wing, "they are very, very impressed. That doesn't often happen. Speak meekly and keep your heads low and I think you shall have your hearts' desires."

Something inside Elena gave a bound that would have sent her leaping to clutch at the retreating attendant's robe, but fortunately Stefan had her in an embrace of iron. Bonnie's head came off Elena's shoulder, and Elena had to restrain her, in turn.

They walked, the very portrait of meekness, to where four scarlet cushions blazed against the golden weave of the floor cloth. Once, Elena would have refused to abase herself.

Now, she was thankful for a soft resting place for her knees.

This close, she could see that the rulers each wore a circlet of some metal, from which a single stone hung on to her forehead.

"We have considered your petition,"the dark one said, her white-gold circlet with its diamond pendant dazzling Elena with pinpricks of lilac and red and royal blue. "Oh, yes,"she added, laughing. "We know what you want. Even a Guardian on the street would have to be very bad at her job not to know. You want your town...renewed. The burned buildings rebuilt. The victims of the malach pestilence re-created, their souls swathed again in flesh, and their memories - "

"But, first,"interrupted the fair one, waving a hand, "don't we have business at hand? This girl - Elena Gilbert - may not be eligible to be a spokesman for her group. If she becomes a Guardian, she doesn't belong with the petitioners."

The redhead tossed her head like an impatient fil y, causing the rose gold of her circlet to flash, and its ruby to shimmer.

"Oh, go on then, Ryannen. If your recruitment levels are so low - "

The businesslike fair one ignored this, but bent forward, some of her hair held back from her face by her circlet of yellow gold with its sapphire pendant. "What about it, Elena?

I know our first encounter was - unfortunate. You must believe that I am sorry for that. But you were well on your way to becoming a full Guardian when we had orders from Above to weave you into a new body so that you could take up your life as a human again."

"You did that? Of course you did." Elena's voice was soft and low and flattering. "You can do anything. But - our first encounter? I don't remember - "

"You were too young, and you saw just a flash of our air car as it passed your parents' vehicle. It was meant to be a minor accident with one apparent casualty - you. But instead..."

Bonnie's hands flew to her mouth. She was clearly getting something Elena wasn't. Her parents'"vehicle"...? The last time she'd driven with her father and mother - and little Margaret - had been the day of the crash. The day she'd distracted her father, who'd been driving...

"Look, Daddy! Look at the pretty - "

And then had come the impact.

Elena forgot about being meek and keeping her head low. In fact, she raised her head, and met gold-splattered blue eyes very much like hers. Her own gaze, she knew, was piercing and hard.

"You... killed my parents?"she whispered.

"No, no!"the dark one cried. "It was an operation gone sour.

We only had to intersect with the Earth dimension for a few minutes. But, quite unexpectedly, your talent flared. You saw our air car. Instead of a crash with only one apparent casualty: you, your father turned to look and..."Slowly her voice trailed off as Elena's turned unbelieving eyes on her.

Bonnie was staring sightlessly into the distance, almost as if she were in trance. "Shinichi,"she breathed. "That weird riddle of his - or whatever it was. That one of us had murdered, and that it was nothing to do with being a vampire or a mercy killing..."

"I'd always assumed it was me,"Stefan said quietly. "My mother never real y recovered after my birth. She died."

"But that doesn't make you a murderer!"Elena cried. "Not like me. Not like me! "

"Well, that was why I was asking you now,"the businesslike blond woman said. "It was a flawed mission, but you understand that we were only trying to recruit you, yes? It's the traditional method. Our genes have honed us to be the best at managing powerful, irrational demons, who don't respond to traditional strength but require on-the-spot recalculation - "

Elena choked back a scream. A scream of wrath - agony - disbelief - guilt -  she didn't know what. Her Plans. Her schemes. The way she had handled boisterous boys in the bad old days - it was all genetic. And...her parents...what had they died for?

Stefan stood up. His jaw was hard, his green eyes were burning brilliantly. There was no gentleness in his face. He clasped Elena's hand and she heard, If you want to fight, I'm in.

Mais, non. Elena turned around and saw Sage. His telepathic voice was unmistakable. She was compelled to listen. We cannot fight them on their own territory and win.

Even I cannot. What you can do is make them pay! Elena, my brave one, your parents' spirits have undoubtedly found new homes. It would be cruel to drag them back. But let us demand of the Guardians anything you desire. For a year and a day in the past, demand whatever you wish! I think that we all will back you.

Elena paused. She looked at the Guardians and she looked at the treasures. She looked at Bonnie and Stefan, who were waiting. There was permission in their eyes.

Then she said slowly to the Guardians, "This is really going to cost you. And I don't want to hear that any of it is impossible. For all your treasures back and the Master Key too...I want my old life. No, I want a new life, with my real old life behind me. I want to be Elena Gilbert, exactly as if I'd graduated with my high school class, and I want to go to Dalcrest College. I want to wake up in my aunt Judith's house in the morning and find that no one realizes I've been gone for almost ten months. And I want a 4.5 grade point average for my last year in high school - just in case of emergencies.

And I want Stefan to have lived in the boardinghouse peacefully all that time, and to have everyone accept him as my boyfriend. And I want every single thing that Shinichi and Misao and whoever they were working for did undone and forgotten. I want the person they were working for dead. And I want everything that Klaus did in Fell's Church undone as well. I want Sue Carson back! I want Vickie Bennett back! I want everyone back! "

Bonnie said faintly, "Even Mr. Tanner?"

Elena understood. If Mr. Tanner had not died - mysteriously drained of blood - then Alaric Saltzman would never have been called to Fell's Church. Elena remembered Alaric from the out-of-body experience: sandy hair, laughing hazel eyes.

She thought of Meredith and his almost-engagement to her.

But who was she to play God? To say, yes, this person can die because he was unlovely and unloved, but this one has to live because she was my friend.

Chapter 42

"It's not a problem,"the fair ruler, Ryannen, said unexpectedly. "We can make it so that your Mr. Tanner repelled an apparent vampire attack and the school called in Alaric Saltzman to take his place and investigate. All right, Idola?" - to the redhead, and to the dark one - "All right, Susurre?"

Elena wasn't All right. Despite the example she'd just had of turn-on-a-dime plotting and scheming, she was scarcely listening. Al she knew was that her voice had gone husky and that tears blurred her eyes. "And...for the Master Key - I want - "

Stefan squeezed her hand. Elena suddenly realized that they were all standing, all three of them, beside her. And the look on every face was the same. Dead resolve.

"I want Damon back."Elena hadn't heard quite this note in her voice since the day she'd been told both her parents had died. If there had been a table, she would have put her clenched fists on it and did her best to loom over the women.

As it was, she simply leaned toward them, speaking in a low and grating voice. "If you do that - bring him back, exactly as he was before he walked into the Gatehouse - then you get the Master Key and the treasures. You say no - and you lose everything. Everything. This is non-negotiable, get it?"

She kept staring into Idola's green eyes. She refused to see dark Susurre drop her forehead onto three fingertips and begin to rub it in small circles. She wouldn't give a glance to blond Ryannen, who was looking at her steadily, having gone into people-management mode. She stared directly into those green eyes under their will full eyebrows. Idola gave a little huff and shook her gorgeous head.

"Look, someone clearly has screwed up in preparing you for this interview."A glance at Susurre. "The other things you've asked for - all together, it forms a very heavy ransom. Do you understand that? Do you understand that it involves changing the memories of all the people for miles around your town, and changing them for every day of ten months?

That it means changing everything in print about Fell's Church - and that there is a lot in print - not to mention other media outlets? It means begging for three human spirits and weaving flesh around them again. I'm not sure we even have the personnel for this - "

Blond Ryannen put a hand on the redhead's arm. "We have it. Susurre's women have little to do in the Nether World. I can lend you perhaps thirty percent of mine - after all , we're going to have to send up a petition to a higher Court for those spirits - "

Idola the redhead interrupted. "All right. What I was saying is that we might just be able to manage - if you throw in the Key. However, your vampire companion - we can't give life back to the lifeless. We can't work with vampires. Once they're gone - they're gone."

"That's what you tell us!"Stefan cried, trying to get in front of Elena. "But why are we so particularly damned, of all creatures? How do you know it's impossible? Have you ever even tried? "

Red-haired Idola was making a disgusted gesture, when Bonnie interrupted, her voice shaking. "It's ridiculous! You can rebuild a town, you can kill the person who's really behind all Shinichi and Misao did, but you can't bring one little vampire back? You brought Elena back!"

"Elena's death as a vampire allowed her to become the Guardian she was original y meant to be. As for the person who gave orders to Shinichi and Misao: It was Inari Saitou -

Obaasan Saitou, as you knew her - and she is already dead, thanks to your friends in Fell's Church, who weakened her - and to you, who destroyed her star ball ."

"Inari? You mean Isobel's grandma? You're saying it was her star ball in the Great Tree's trunk? That's impossible!"Bonnie cried.

"No, it's not. It's the truth,"blond Ryannen said simply.

"And she's dead now?"

"After a long battle which nearly killed your friends. Yes - but what actual y killed her was having her star ball destroyed."

"So,"dark Susurre said quietly, "if you follow the curve...in a way your Damon did die to save Fell's Church from another massacre like the one on that Japanese island. He kept saying that was what he'd come to the Nether World to do. Do you not think he would be...satisfied? At peace?"

"At peace?"Stefan spat bitterly, and Sage growled.

"Woman,"he said, "you obviously have never met Damon Salvatore before."The tone in his voice - more resonant, more threatening somehow - made Elena final y break off her staredown with the red-haired Idola. She turned and looked - - and saw the enormous room filled with Sage's out-spread wings.

They weren't like any of her ephemeral Wings Powers. They were clearly part of Sage. They were velvety and reptilian, and, unfurled like this, they stretched from distant wall to wall , and touched the grand, golden ceiling. They also demonstrated why Sage didn't usual y wear shirts.

He was beautiful this way, bronze skin and hair against those giant, leathery soft-looking arches. But Elena, after one look at him, knew that the time had come to play the ace up her sleeve. She turned around to meet Idola's green gaze squarely.

"Al this time we've been bargaining for a Gatehouse full of treasures,"she said, "and - one Master Key."

"A Master Key, stolen by the kitsune ages upon ages ago,"Susurre explained quietly, lifting her dark eyes.

"And you've said that it's not enough for you to bring Damon back."Elena forced her voice not to waver.

"Not even if it were your only request."Ryannen tossed a golden lock of hair over her shoulder.

"So you say. But...what if I throw into the pot...another Master Key?"

There was a pause, and Elena's heart began to pound in sick terror. Because it was the wrong kind of pause. There were no shocked gasps. No astonished glances from one Guardian ruler to another. No looks of disbelief.

After another moment Idola said smugly, "If you mean the other stolen key that your friends had on Earth - it was confiscated as soon as they hid it. It was stolen property. It belonged to us."

She's been here too long, in the Dark Dimensions, Elena thought with one part of her mind. She's enjoying herself.

Idola leaned toward her, as if to confirm Elena's guess. "It - simply - is not - possible,"she said emphatically.

"Real y, it isn't,"the fair Ryannen added briskly. "We don't know what happens to vampires. But they don't pass through our purview. We never see them after death. The simplest explanation is that they just - go out."She snapped her fingers.

"I don't believe that!" Elena was aware that her voice had risen in volume. "I don't believe that for one moment!"

Voices, not attached to anyone in particular, burst into a clamor of argument around Elena, forming a sort of poem: Not possible. It's simply not possible! ( But please...) No!

Damon is gone, and to ask where is like asking where a candle flame goes when it's blown out. ( But shouldn't you try to bring him back, at the least? ) Whatever has happened to gratitude? You four should be grateful that the other things you asked for can be done. ( But in exchange for both Master Keys - ) No Power we can command could bring Damon back! Elena must try to reconcile herself to reality.

She has been pampered too much already! ( But what harm can it do to try again? ) All right! If you must know, Susurre has already forced us to try. And nothing came of it!

Damon...is...gone! His spirit was nowhere to be found in the ether! That is what happens to vampires, and everyone knows it!

Elena found herself looking down at her own hands, which were very clean but with broken nails and every knuckle bleeding. The outside world had become unreal again. She was inside herself, struggling with her grief, struggling with the knowledge that Idola, the central ruler of Guardians, hadn't even mentioned before that they had looked for Damon's spirit. And that it was...gone.

Suddenly, the room was pressing in on her. There wasn't enough air. There were only these women: these powerful, magical Guardian women; who Still did not have enough power or magic to save Damon - or at least didn't even care enough to try twice.

She wasn't sure what was happening to her. Her throat felt puffed out, her chest was both huge and tight. Each heartbeat sounded through her as if trying to shake her to death.

To death. In her mind's eye, she saw a hand hold up a glass of Clarion Loess Black Magic.

And then, Elena knew that she had to stand a certain way, and hold her arms a certain way, and whisper certain words in her own mind. But the last, the naming of the spell , had only to be said aloud at the end.

At the end - when things slowed. When green-eyed Idola -

what a perfect name for someone who idolized herself, Elena thought - and fair businesslike Ryannen and nurturing Susurre - al stared at her with open mouths, too shocked to move even a finger as, quietly and calmly, Elena said,

"Wings of Destruction - "

It was a soldier, just an ordinary one of the rank and file, one of the dark women, who stopped it. She leaped up onto the dais, and, with inhuman speed, slapped her hand over Elena's mouth, so that the final syllable was a mumble, and the golden, green, and blue hall did not explode into fragments with hot metal running in rivulets like lava, and the flower-fountain did not vaporize, and the stained-glass windows didn't shatter into atoms.

Then there were more arms around Elena, holding her down, scarcely letting her breathe, even when she went limp for lack of air. Elena fought like an animal, with her teeth and nails, to escape. But she eventually was completely restrained, pinned to the floor. She could hear Sage's deep voice raging and Stefan, in between desperate telepathic bursts to her, pleading and explaining, "She's Still not in reality! She doesn't even know what she's doing!"

But louder, she could hear the voices of the Guardians. "She would have killed us all !""Those Wings - I've never seen anything so deadly!" "A human! And with just three words, she could have wiped us out!" "If Lenea hadn't tackled her - ""Or if she had been another few feet away - ""She destroyed a moon, you know! No life on it at all now, and ashes Still falling from the sky!" "That isn't the point. The point is that she shouldn't have Wings powers at all. She's got to be clipped of them." "That's right - clip her Wings! Do it! "

Elena recognized Ryannen's and Idola's voices at the end there. She was Still trying to fight, but they held her so tightly and piled on her so ruthlessly that it had become a fight simply to get air and al she did was exhaust herself.

And then they clipped her Wings. It was quick, at least, and Elena felt very little. What hurt most was her heart. Some proud, stubborn streak had been brought out with the fighting, and now she was ashamed to feel each pair cut off.

First went Wings of Redemption, those great rainbow-hued arches. Then Wings of Purification, white and iridescent as frosted cobwebs. Wings of the Wind, like honey-colored thistledown. Wings of Remembrance, soft violet and midnight blue. And then Wings of Protection - emerald green and gold, the Wings that had saved her friends from Bloddeuwedd's frenzied attack on them the first time they had entered the Dark Dimensions.

And, finally, Wings of Destruction - high, ebony arches with edges as delicate as black lace.

Elena tried to keep silent as each power was taken. But after the first one or two had fallen at her sides, in shadows that perhaps only she could see, she heard a small gasp, and realized that it was her own voice. And with the next cut, an involuntary little cry.

For a moment there was silence. And then suddenly there was overwhelming noise. Elena could hear Bonnie keening and Sage roaring, and Stefan, gentle Stefan, shouting blasphemies and curses at the Guardians. Elena guessed from the stifled sound of his voice that he was fighting them, fighting to get to her.

He reached her, somehow, just as the deadly, delicate Wings of Destruction were sheared from her shoulders and mind, and fell like tall shadows to the ground. It was good that he did reach her then, because at last, when Elena was the least dangerous she had been since the Powers of Wings had begun awakening in her, suddenly the Guardians seemed afraid. They stepped back from her, these strong and dangerous women, and only Stefan was there to catch her and hold her in his arms.

Stunned, dazed, she was an eighteen-year-old girl who was ordinary. Except for her blood. They wanted to rob her of her blood as well...to "purify" it. The three rulers and their attendants had already gathered in a determined, multihued triangle around her and were working their magic when Sage bel owed, "Stop!"

Elena, drooping over Stefan's shoulder, could see him vaguely, his velvety black wings Still spread from wall to wall , Still touching the golden ceiling. Bonnie clung to him like a bit of stray dandelion fluff. "You have already diminished her aura to almost nothing," he growled. "If you 'purify' the blood of this pauvre petite completely, she will die - and then she will awaken. You will have created un vampire, Mesdames. Is that what you wish?"

Susurre reeled back. For the ruler of such a harsh and unyielding realm, she seemed almost too gentle - but not too soft to shear off my Wings, Elena thought, wriggling her shoulders to ease them. Maybe she didn't know how much it would hurt, another part of her mind offered vaguely.

Then all her mind came together in an emergency meeting.

Something warm and cooling was sliding down the back of her neck, in tiny droplets. Not blood. No, this was infinitely more precious than what the Guardians had taken away.

Stefan's tears.

She rocked hard, trying to take her own weight on her feet.

Somehow, shakily, she managed it. She only realized just how shaky she was when she tried to lift a hand and wipe the tears off Stefan's cheeks with her thumb. Her whole hand wobbled as if she were making a childish joke. Her thumb struck his cheek with enough force to make anyone else wince. She looked at him with dumb apology, too shocked to try to speak.

Stefan was speaking. Over and over. "It doesn't matter,"he was saying. "It's All right, love. Oh, lovely love, it will be All right."He wiped her eyes with a hand that was rock steady, and all the time he was looking only at her, and - she knew -

thinking only of her.

She knew that because she also knew the moment when it changed.

Red hair was in her line of sight, blurred through new tears.

Red hair and narrow green eyes, too close to her. That was when Elena felt Stefan remember that there was anything other than Elena in the world.

His face changed. He didn't snarl or stick out his chin. The change was an entire alteration, but it centered around his eyes, which became deadly hard while everything else became sharp and fierce.

"If you touch her again, you vicious bitch, I will rip out your throat,"Stefan said, and each word was like a chip of ice-cold iron dropped onto the floor.

Elena's tears stopped with the shock of it. Stefan didn't talk that way to women. Even Damon didn't - hadn't. But the words were Still echoing in the sudden silence of the cathedral-like room. People were backing away.

Idola was backing away too, but her lip was curled. "Do you think that because we are Guardians that we cannot harm you - ?"she was beginning, when Stefan's voice cut through hers cleanly.

"I think that because you are 'Guardians'you can kill sanctimoniously and get away with it,"Stefan said, and his lip made a far more compelling - and frightening - line of scorn than Idola's had. "You would have killed Elena if Sage hadn't stopped you. Damn you,"he added softly, but with such utter conviction that Idola took another step backward. "Yes, you'd better rally all your little friends around,"he added. "I might just decide to kill you anyway. I killed my own brother, as I'm sure you realize."

"But surely - that was only after taking a mortal blow yourself."Susurre was between the two of them, trying to intercede.

Stefan shrugged. He looked at her with the same contempt as he had the other ruler. "I Still had the use of my arm,"he said deliberately. "I could have decided to drop my sword, or to merely wound him. Instead I chose to put a blade straight through his heart."He showed his teeth in a distinctly unfriendly smile. "And now I don't even need a weapon."

"Stefan,"Elena managed at last to whisper.

"I know. She's weaker than I am and you don't want to see me kill her. That's why she's Still alive, love. It's the only reason."As Elena lifted half-frightened eyes to him, Stefan added in a voice only she could hear, Of course, there are some things about me you don't know, Elena. Things I'd hoped you'd never have to see. Knowing you - loving you - made me almost forget about them.

Stefan's voice in her head woke something inside Elena.

She lifted her head and looked at the blurry mass of Guardians around them. She saw strawberry-blond curls suspended in midair. Bonnie. Bonnie fighting. Doing it weakly, but only because a pair of the fair Guardians and another pair of dark ones were holding her in the air, one to each limb. As Elena stared at her she seemed to regain energy and fought harder. And Elena could hear...

something. It was faint and far away, but it almost sounded like...her name. Like her name spoken by whispering branches or the whirring of passing bicycle wheels. lay...nah...eee...lay...

Elena reached inwardly for the sound. She tried desperately to grasp whatever came after, but nothing happened. She tried a trick she would have found easy yesterday -

channeling Power to the center of her telepathy. It didn't work. She tried her telepathy.

Bonnie! Can you hear me?

There wasn't even the slightest change in the smaller girl's expression.

Elena had lost her link to Bonnie.

She watched as Bonnie realized the same thing, watched the fight go out of the small body. Bonnie's face, upturned in blank despair, was indescribably sad, and somehow indescribably pure and beautiful, all at once.

That will never happen to us, Stefan's voice in her mind told her fiercely. Never! I give you my -

No! Elena thought back, superstitiously terrified of a jinx. If Stefan swore, something might happen - she might have to become a vampire or a spirit - to ensure that he didn't break his word.

He stopped, and Elena knew that he had heard her. And somehow this knowledge, that Stefan had heard a single word from her, Stilled her. She knew he wasn't spying. He'd heard because she'd sent the thought to him. She wasn't alone. She might be ordinary again; they might have taken her wings and most of the Power of her blood, but she wasn't alone. She leaned toward him, her forehead against Stefan's chin.

"No one is alone." She'd told Damon that. Damon Salvatore, a being who no longer existed. But who Still called forth from her one more word, one final cry. His name.

Damon!

He'd died four dimensions away. But she could feel Stefan backing her, amplifying her transmission, sending it like one last beacon through the multitude of worlds that separated them from his cold and lifeless body.

Damon!

There wasn't the slightest glimmer of an answer. Of course not. Elena was making a fool of herself.

Suddenly something stronger than grief, stronger than self-pity, even stronger than guilt, took hold of her. Damon wouldn't have wanted her to be carried out of this hall  - even by Stefan. Especially by Stefan. He would have wanted her to show no sign of weakness to these women who'd shorn her and humiliated her.

Yes. That was Stefan. Her love, but not her lover, willing to love her chastely from now until the end of her days....

The end...of her days?

Elena was suddenly glad that she couldn't project to strangers telepathically and that Stefan had set shields around them when he'd taken her into his arms. She turned to Ryannen, who was watching...warily, but Still with business in her eyes.

"I'd like to go now, if you don't mind,"she said, picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder with a gesture as arrogant as she could make it. There was a bolt of agony as the weight of the strap hit the place from which most of her wings had sprung, but she kept her face contemptuous and indifferent.

Bonnie, back on the ground since she wasn't fighting any longer, followed Elena's lead. Stefan had left his backpack in the Gatehouse, but he gently cupped a hand around Elena's elbow, not guiding her, but showing that he was there for her.

Sage's wings folded back into themselves and were gone.

"You understand that for the return of these treasures which are ours by right - but which we were barred from retrieving - you will be granted your requests with the exception of the imposs - "

"I understand,"Elena said flatly, just as Stefan said, much more brusquely, "She understands. Just do it, will you?"

"It is already being organized."Ryannen's eyes, dark blue splashed with gold, met Elena's with a look not entirely unsympathetic.

"The best thing,"Sussure added hastily, "would be for us to put you to sleep and send you to your - your old, new dwellings. By the time you awaken, al will have been accomplished."

Elena forced her face not to change. "Send me to Maple Street?"she asked, looking at Ryannen. "Aunt Judith's house?"

"In your sleep, yes."

"I don't want to be asleep."Elena moved even closer to Stefan. "Don't let them put me to sleep!"

"No one's going to do anything to you that you don't want,"Stefan said, and his voice was like the edge of a razor.

Sage rumbled his support, and Bonnie stared at the fair woman hard.

Ryannen bowed her head.

Elena woke up.

It was dark, and she'd been asleep. She couldn't remember exactly how she'd fallen asleep, but she knew she wasn't on the palanquin, and she knew she wasn't in a sleeping bag.

Stefan? Bonnie? Damon? she thought automatically, but there was something odd about her telepathy. It felt almost as if it were confined to her own head.

Was she in Stefan's room? It must be pitch-black outside, since she couldn't even see the outline of the trapdoor that led to the widow's walk.

"Stefan?"she whispered, while various bits of information pooled in her mind. There was a smell , at once familiar and unfamiliar. She was lying on a comfortable double bed, not one of Lady Ulma's silken-and-velvet extravaganzas, but not any lumpy featherbed from the boardinghouse, either. Was she in a hotel?

As these various thoughts came together in her brain, there was a soft quick rapping. Knuckles on glass.

Elena's body took over. She tossed off the bedspread and ran to the window, mysteriously avoiding obstacles without thinking about them at all. Her hands wrenched aside curtains that she somehow knew were there and her skyrocketing heart brought a name to her lips.

"Da - !"

And then the world stopped and did its slowest somersault of all. The sight of a face, fierce and concerned and loving and yet strangely frustrated, just on the other side of the second-story window, brought Elena's memories back.

All of them.

Fell's Church was saved.

And Damon was dead.

Her head bent slowly until her forehead touched the cool pane of glass.

Chapter 43

"Elena?"Stefan said quietly. "Could you ask me to come in?

You have to invite me in if you want to - to talk - "

Invite him in? He was already in - inside her heart. She had told the Guardians that everyone would have to accept Stefan as her boyfriend of almost a year.

It didn't matter. In a low voice she said, "Come in, Stefan."

"The window's locked from your side, Elena."

Numbly, Elena unlocked the window. The next moment she was encompassed by warm, strong arms in a desperate, fervent embrace. But the moment after that, the arms dropped, leaving her frozen and lonely.

"Stefan? What's wrong?"Her eyes had adapted and by the starlight through the window she could see him hesitating before her.

"I can't - It isn't - It's not me you want,"he said in a rush that sounded as if it came through a constricted throat. "But I wanted you to know that - that Meredith and Matt are holding Bonnie. Comforting her, I mean. They're all okay and so is Mrs. Flowers. And I thought that you - "

"They put me to sleep! They said they wouldn't put me to sleep!"

"You fell asleep, lo - Elena. While we were waiting for them to send us home. We all watched over you: Bonnie, Sage, and I." He was Still speaking in that formal, unusual tone. "But I thought - Well, that you might want to talk tonight, too. Before I - I left." He put a finger up to stop his lip from shaking.

"You swore you wouldn't leave me!"Elena cried. "You promised, not for any reason, not for any length of time, no matter how noble the cause!"

"But - Elena - that was before I understood..."

"You Still don't understand! Do you know - "

His hand flew to cover her mouth and he put his lips to her ear. "Lo - Elena. We're in your house. Your aunt - "

Elena felt her eyes widen, although of course subconsciously she had known this all along. The air of familiarity. This bed - it was her bed, and the spread was her beloved gold and white bedspread. The obstacles she'd known how to avoid in the dark - the tapping at her window...she was home.

Like a climber who has negotiated an impossible-seeming section of rock, and almost fallen, Elena felt a tremendous rush of adrenaline. And it was this - or, perhaps, simply the power of the love that flooded through her - that achieved what she had been so clumsily trying to reach. She felt her soul expand and come out of her body. And meet Stefan's.

She was appalled by the hastily swept-away desolation in his spirit, and humbled by the surge of love that flooded every part of him at the touch of her mind.

Oh, Stefan. Just - say that - that you can forgive me, that's all. If you forgive me I can live. Maybe you can even be happy with me again - if you just give it a little time.

I'm already happy with you. But we have all the time in the world, Stefan reassured her. But she caught the shadow of a dark thought whisked quickly out of the way. He had all the time in the world. She, however...

Elena had to choke back a laugh but then clutched at Stefan suddenly. My backpack - did they take it? Where is it?

Right beside your nightstand. I can reach it. Do you want it?

He reached in the darkness and pulled up something heavy and rough and none too pleasant-smelling. Elena thrust one frantic hand inside it while Still holding on to Stefan with the other.

Yes! Oh, Stefan, it's here!

He was beginning to suspect - but he only knew when she drew out the bottle labeled Evian Water and held it to her cheek. It was icy cold, although the night was mild and humid.

And as it effervesced violently, it glowed in a way that no ordinary water did.

I didn't mean to do it, she told Stefan, suddenly worried that he might not like to associate with a thief. At least - not at first. Sage said to get the water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life into bottles. I dug up a big bottle and this little one, and somehow I stashed the smaller one in my backpack - I'd've put the big one in, too, but it didn't fit. And I didn't even think about the little one again until after they took away my Wings and my telepathy.

And a good thing, Stefan thought. If they had caught you -

oh, my lovely love! His arms squeezed the breath from Elena's lungs. So that's why you were suddenly so eager to leave!

"They took almost everything else supernatural about me,"Elena whispered, placing her lips close to Stefan's ear.

"I have to live with that, and if they'd given me a chance I'd have agreed - for the sake of Fell's Church - if I'd been logical - "She broke off as she suddenly realized that she had been literal y out of her mind. She'd been worse than a thief. She'd tried to use a lethal attack on a group of - mostly - innocent people. And the worst thing was that a part of her knew that Damon would have understood her madness, while she wasn't sure Stefan ever could.

"But you don't have to change me into - you know,"she began whispering frenetically again. "A sip or two of this and I can be with you forever. Forever and - for - forever - Stefan - "She stopped, trying to get her breath and her mental balance.

His hand closed over hers on the cap. "Elena."

"I'm not crying. It's because I'm happy. Forever and ever, Stefan. We can be together, just...just us two...forever."

"Elena, love."His hand kept hers from twisting open the bottle.

"It - isn't what you want?"

With his other arm, Stefan pulled her tightly to him. Her head fell forward onto his shoulder and he rested his chin on her hair. "It's what I want more than anything. I'm...dazed, I guess. I have been ever since - "He stopped and tried again.

"If we have all the time in the world, we have tomorrow,"he said in a voice muffled by hair. "And tomorrow is time enough for you to start to think it through. There's enough in that bottle for maybe four or five people. You're the one who's going to have to decide who drinks it, love. But not tonight. Tonight is for..."

With a sudden rush of joy Elena understood. "You're talking about - Damon."Amazing how difficult it was to simply say his name. It almost seemed a violation, and yet...

When he could talk - like this - for a moment to me, he told me what he wanted, she sent. Stefan stirred a little in the darkness, but said nothing. Stefan, he only asked for one thing before he...went. It was not to be forgotten. That's all.

And we're the ones who remember the most. Us and Bonnie.

Aloud she added, "I will never forget him. And I will never let anyone else who knew him forget him - for as long as I live."

She knew she'd spoken too loudly, but Stefan didn't try to quiet her. He gave one quick shudder and then held her tightly again, his face buried in her hair.

I remember, he sent to her, when Katherine asked him to join her - when we three were in Honoria Fell's crypt. I remember what he said to her. Do you?

Elena felt their souls intertwine as they both saw the scene through the other's eyes. Of course, I remember too.

Stefan sighed, half-laughing. I remember trying to take care of him later in Florence. He wouldn't behave, wouldn't even Influence the girls he fed on. Another sigh. I think he wanted to get caught at that point. He couldn't even look me in the face and talk about you.

I made Bonnie send for you. I made sure she got both of you out here, Elena told him. Her tears had begun to flow again, but slowly - gently. Her eyes were shut and she felt a faint smile come to her lips.

Do you know - Stefan's mental voice was startled, astonished -  I remember something else! From when I was very young, maybe three or four years old. My father had a terrible temper, especially right after my mother died. And back then, when I was little, and my father was furious and drunk, Damon would deliberately get in between us. He'd say something obnoxious and - well, my father would end up beating him instead of me. I don't know how I could have forgotten about that.

I do, Elena thought, remembering how frightened she had been of Damon when he'd first turned human - even though he'd put himself in between her and the vampires who wanted to Discipline her in the Dark Dimension. He had a gift for knowing exactly what to say - how to look - what to do - to get under anyone's skin.

She could feel Stefan chuckle faintly, wryly. A gift, was it?

Well, I certainly couldn't do it, and I can manage most people, Elena replied softly. Not him, though. Never him.

Stefan added, But he was almost always kinder to weak people than to strong ones. He always did have that soft spot for Bonnie... He broke off, as if frightened he'd ventured too near something sacred.

But Elena had her bearings now. She was glad, so glad, that in the end Damon had died to save Bonnie. Elena herself needed no more proof of his feelings about her. She would always love Damon, and she would never allow anything to diminish that love.

And, somehow, it seemed fitting that she and Stefan should sit in her old bedroom and speak of what they remembered of Damon in hushed tones. She planned on taking the same thing up with the others tomorrow.

When she finally fell asleep in Stefan's arms, it was hours after midnight.

Chapter 44

On the smallest moon of the Nether World fine ash was falling. It fell on two already ash-covered bodies. It fell on ash-choked water. It blocked the sunlight so that an endless midnight covered the moon's ash-coated surface.

And something else fell. In the smallest imaginable droplets, an opalescent fluid fell, colors swirling as if to try and make up for the ugliness of the ashes. They were tiny drops, but there were trillions upon trill ions of them, falling endlessly, concentrated over the spot where they had once been part of the largest container of raw Power in three dimensions.

There was a body on the ground on this spot - not quite a corpse. The body had no heartbeat; it did not breathe, and there was no brain activity. But somewhere in it there was a slow pulsing, that quickened very slightly as the tiny drops of Power fell upon it.

The pulsing was made up of nothing but a memory. The memory of a girl with dark blue eyes and golden hair and a small face with wide brown eyes. And the taste: the taste of two maidens' tears. Elena. Bonnie.

Putting the two of them together they formed what was not exactly a thought, not exactly a picture. But to someone who only understood words, it might be translated: They are waiting for me. If I can figure out who I am.

And that sparked a fierce determination.

After what seemed like centuries but was only a few hours, something moved in the ash. A fist clenched.

And something stirred in the brain, a self-revelation. A name.

Damon.