This is the last chapter. enjoy :)

Chapter 4

"I'll help you," A girl said. She had reddish brown hair and an angry expression.

"And who are you?" Damon asked the girl who had walked into the house without introduction; nobody had even seen her before.

"I'm Mia, the traveller that helped Katherine take full control of Elena's body," the girl said.

Damon jumped up so he could tower over her. "If you helped Katherine, why do you want to go against her now?"

"Because, she killed me," Mia shrugged.

Damon gave a questioning glare.

"What you think I'd be dumb enough to work with a Petrova and not use a protection spell?"

Damon shrugged. "Smart girl... How do I know you're not going to make things worse?"

"I'm the one that cast the spell allowing Katherine full control, so I'm the only one that can reverse it."

Negotiations had gone worse in the past. Damon sighed at his lack of options and gestured for Mia to follow him to the basement. It physically pained him to see Elena in the weak state that she was but he consoled himself with the thought that it was also Katherine there.

"How long is this going to take?" Damon asked while Mia muttered a few incoherent words.

"You vampires have no patience!" Mia snapped. "I need quiet."

After some time, Mia stopped chanting and looked around.

"What's wrong?" Damon asked.

"I don't have enough strength to do the spell without channelling something powerful..." Mia explained.

"Like what?" Damon asked.

"I need to use sacrificial magic... The crow..."

Damon shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "Not Ric... No, surely there's something else... I'll go and get you a different crow!"

"No, that crow... There's something about it... I can feel its power... It has a connection to Elena."

"A connection?" Damon asked. "That's ridiculous."

Mia shrugged. "Do you want Elena back or not?"

Damon nodded and watched in horror as Mia ripped Ric's guts out, ruining his perfect feathers and continued her spell. Everything and everyone he'd ever loved always got ruined. Everyone except Elena... This was his chance at making sure that never ever happened. He was never going to let Elena get ruined. Not ever.

"It's done." Mia stepped back and left the house without another word.

"Damon?" Elena said tentatively, sounding like a little girl who'd just woken up from a long sleep.

"Elena, how do you feel?" Damon asked, pulling her into his arms.

Elena collapsed into him, not able to hold her own weight. After a minute or so of just breathing him in she replied to his question. "I'm thirsty."

Damon chuckled and changed his position so that they were both sitting more comfortably on the old bed. Then, Caroline came in holding three blood bags.

"A toast!" she announced happily, handing each of them a blood bag and opening her own, "To that bitch finally being out of our lives for good!"

"I'll drink to that," Damon said, opening his own.

"Cheers," Elena managed to mutter before draining the whole bag in a matter of milliseconds.

Caroline chuckled. "I'll go and get you another; you've been desiccating for a good few months now."

"Thank you," Elena said; her voice was still a little croaky.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked, looking her over for any sign of harm.

"I'm fine now... When Katherine was still in control I kept seeing something – a crow..."

Damon didn't meet Elena's eyes, not wanting her to see the pain in his after the loss of his pet; it was pathetic. "Yeah... After you – Katherine – broke up to me I went out into the forest and found a baby crow. It was dying so I... I helped it..."

"Aw that's sweet," Elena said, not even a hint of a condescending tone, she really meant it.

"But the traveller doing the spell to free you from Katherine's control needed to use sacrificial magic..." Elena frowned as she caught on as to where Damon was going with his story. "Apparently the crow had some sort of connection to you? I have no idea how since you'd never seen it before... So she used the crow and the spell worked."

"What did you call the crow?" Elena asked.

Damon snorted. "What makes you think I would name it? I saved its life so it started following me everywhere. I didn't name it; it was just a crow!"

"Damon," Elena sighed. She knew she'd named it. Damon lit scented candles, had bubble baths, was a complete neat freak and the sweetest guy you'd ever meet if you could look past the whole psychopathic serial killer aspect of his personality (which Elena did easily nowadays).

"Ric... I called the crow Ric..."

"Oh, Damon," Elena said, pulling him into her arms. He pretended like he didn't care, like it was just a crow. But now Elena saw that the crow had been his best friend and had helped to pull him out of the dark which Katherine had plunged him into by breaking up with him.

"It's just a crow, Elena," he sighed.

Elena didn't stop hugging him but didn't say anything either; she knew that pushing him to share his feelings would only make matters worse.

"Here you go, Elena," Caroline sang before she saw them clinging to each other. "Oh... I'll just come back later then."

Elena looked up and pulled away from Damon reluctantly. 'No, no,' she called out. 'It's fine, really. We can stop.'

'No, let her go,' Damon protested.

Caroline laughed and handed Elena the blood bag she had brought her and sat down next to her. Elena managed to drink this blood bag at a more controlled pace so she could talk to her friends normally.

'Why don't we go and sit upstairs, there's no reason for us to stay here anymore,' Elena suggested.

'Sure,' Caroline agreed and the three of them joined Stefan in the living room. Soon, Bonnie, Jeremy, Matt and Tyler also joined them along with (according to Jeremy and Bonnie) the ghosts of Ric and Vicky.

'We're finally in the clear,' Matt said with a sigh of relief.

Damon threw a pillow at him. 'Way to go, Matt, you just jinxed us all!'

'We're never fully in the clear anyway,' Stefan sighed. 'There's always going to be something...'

'At least we're all here together,' Bonnie said, snuggling into Jeremy who happily responded by wrapping his arm around her. Elena nodded and cuddled into Damon who grinned like a child in a candy store. Even Stefan allowed himself to smile at the sight of his brother finally being happy. Caroline and Tyler shared a brief moment of awkwardness which was then interrupted by Jeremy suddenly guffawing seemingly unprovoked.

'What?' matt asked. 'What's so funny?'

'You...' Jeremy gasped through his laughter. 'You got a pet crow... and called it Ric?'

Damon frowned and tried to look angry in order to cover his embarrassment but it was hard to be angry with Elena smiling up at him like that. 'What's it to you?' he asked.

Jeremy finally managed to control his laughter. 'Well... ehem... Ric says he's touched...'

'Ric's here?' Damon asked, looking around. Jeremy nodded and gestured over to where Ric's ghost was standing.

'He says that he doesn't know how he should feel about having a crow named after him,' Bonnie chuckled.

'He should be proud,' Damon said. 'That crow died to save Elena.'

'And for that I am eternally grateful,' Elena smiled, placing a kiss on Damon's cheek which slowly progressed into a lot more than just a little peck on the cheek and everyone promptly left, groaning in disgust as they went, as the couple celebrated their reunion.

Thanks to all of you that have Favorited, followed and reviewed this, I love all of you! And praise the gods that they finally figured it out! I was screaming at the screen as it happened... good luck for this weeks episode. thanks for reading x