Chapter 30

It doesn't take Damon long to find Elena. She wasn't trying to hide her tracks when she fled. She just wanted as much distance as possible between her and her zombie family. She's stomping through the woods at a human's pace when he finds her. She forces her way through the trees, stumbling blindly through the thick foliage, and Damon follows after her.

Images of her past flood Elena's mind, and she can do nothing but brace against them. She refuses to let herself enjoy the memories of toddlers running through her house, Caroline singing beautiful but slightly inappropriate lullabies, Stephan worrying about the girls not wearing safety helmets on their mountain bikes, and Damon complaining about boys paying too much attention to the girls. As much as she yearns to wrap her psyche in the warmth and love of the wonderful memories, she doesn't. She slaps them away, afraid of being burned again. Afraid of the horrific, suffocating pain of loss. Because with good memories, come the bad.

All the memories, good and bad, that she locked behind a brick wall in her mind, she can feel them pressing against the barrier, forcing one tiny brick to shutter and move. She has to stop it. She can't deal with the pain. She can't handle it. She'll crumble under the weight of the emotional surge and flip her switch to save herself. And, her husband would never forgive her. Elena knows all of this with a bone chilling certainty.

So, she runs. She runs through the woods of Mystic Falls, brushing past branches and leaves that leave temporary scratches across her bare legs. Elena doesn't care about the external pain, and Damon notices.

"Elena," he calls as he follows at her heels.

"I'm not going back."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm not going back," she repeats as though she didn't hear him. She steps out of the woods into a clearing that leads to the quarry and breaks into a run. Damon stares at her in utter confusion. Has the woman lost her mind? When she stops at the edge of the cliff, he vamp speeds to her side and reaches out but stops when she falls to her knees.

"Elena, what's wrong?"

"I won't go back, Damon. Please don't make me go back," she pleads, looking up at him. The pain and loss in her tear swollen eyes stabs at Damon. This may not be his Elena, but she's still Elena. And he can't bare to see her in pain. So he does the only thing he can think to do that might soothe her. He invokes the sire bond.

"Elena," he whispers gently as he kneels down next to her and cups her face with his hands. "I want you calm down and tell me what's wrong."

Elena closes her eyes at his touch and leans into it. He's like a cool surface against her feverish skin. As always, her husband's mere presence helps to sooth her emotional pain. Everything suddenly seems bearable, and she knows what to do. She knows how to pull back all the loss and sorrow threatening to overwhelm her. She's figured out a way to put the brick back in its place within her mental wall.

Elena opens her eyes to find the calming waves of the ocean as they spray sea foam into the air only a few feet away. The sand melts around her feet and soups in between her toes as she wiggles them unabashedly. A gust of wind swirls her short hair into a chaotic dance and tugs along the smell of salt and fish. She takes a deep unhindered breath and smiles at the bright sundress draping her small form.

"Where are we?" Damon asks, and Elena jumps in surprise.

"What are you doing here?"

Damon raises his eyebrows at her confusion and splays his hands in a telling motion. "Hey, this is your dream, not mine."

Elena blushes at her mistake. A vampire her age should know better, but she doesn't perform mind tricks very often. It's not one of her favorite vampiric abilities.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to bring you here. I guess it's just habit."

Damon watches Elena fidget nervously for a moment before taking a deep breath and shaking off the mistake. In an instant, she transforms from an embarrassed teenager into a confident woman taking a much needed break at the edge of the ocean. Which is all the more amazing considering she was a blubbering, panicking mess about two seconds before.

Elena steps into the ocean water deep enough to wet her calves and stares out over the horizon. She savors the feel of the tide pulling and pushing against her body. With every tug, she feels the negative energy raging against her mental barriers slowly ebb away as though the ocean is draining her. If only she could figure out how to refill her voids with something pleasant. But, that would mean facing everything she's worked so hard to hide away.

Grimacing at the feel and taste of salt water, Damon steps up beside her in the water. Apparently, Elena's subconscious prefers him bare chested and wearing only swim trunks. Who is he to argue?

"Elena," he whispers, grasping her hand gently. "I want you to tell me what you're feeling."

Surprised again, this time by Damon's question, Elena turns to meet his gaze. Damon doesn't like discussing emotions and feelings. Correction, he doesn't like discussing his own emotions.

Of course he wants to know why I freaked out at the sight of my long lost family, Elena mentally humors. Not to mention me dragging him into my mental hideout. Healthy, Elena. Real healthy.

But there's still something odd about Damon's question. Something that tugs at her from the back of her mind, but she can't quiet put her finger on it.

"I'm okay."

"Are you sure? You were…"

"This place helps," Elena interrupts with a gentle smile. "I don't know why, but it…it just helps. It's been like that since we found it."

Elena looks down at the water lapping her calves with a content expression and sighs deeply. Damon has so many questions for the brunette, but he can tell that she isn't done speaking. So he watches her quietly as she leans down to pull a small seashell from the shallow water.

"Whenever things went…wrong," Elena whispers, flipping the shell over. "And, we needed time away from the world. Or we just needed time to…heal…I guess. We'd come here."

"We?"

"You and I," she answers, turning back to him. "We built a house."

Damon is suddenly captured by Elena's loving gaze. Stunned by the intense passion of her unabashed expression, his instinctual response is to forget how to breath and soak up her attention and love like a dehydrated sponge. But when her eyes shift past him and over his shoulder, his lungs finally expand and allows oxygen to reach his brain. And he remembers the bitter truth of her love, the dark cloud that rains on his parade. The sire bond.

With a sullen expression, Damon turns to see what's caught Elena's eye and finds a large cabin on the beach. A single story abode with white paint and a small covered patio, the house is flooded with light from the morning sun through giant windows. Several steps lead directly to the beach, where a few chairs and a giant umbrella await the couple.

Damon silently admits that it's a beautiful place in which to escape from the world, but it doesn't really seem like his style. He usually likes to escape to bars and loud music and sex. Lots of crazy, hot sex.

"Not really what I imagined for retirement," Damon quips with a suggestively raised eyebrow. "I'm sure it's very relaxing and boring."

"We find ways to entertain each other," Elena responds with a faux innocent expression. "There's also a town about ten minutes South of here that's home to a local university. It's considered the party school of New Zealand."

Damon smiles at the small brunette. It seems they've carved out a nice little nest here in…New Zealand, apparently. "Sounds delicious."

Elena giggles and suddenly throws her arms up in the air to twirl in the sand. Her sundress flourishes all around her, and Damon enjoys the view of her tan legs peeking out from under the dress. She stops dancing long enough to collapse into one of the sunbathing chairs and stretches out to enjoy the warm sun. Damon follows, taking a chair next to her, and stares out into the ocean for several minutes.

He can see why Elena considers this her safe space. There's just something about the sound of the waves and smell of sea salt that soothe's the soul. But why did she need to escape to this fantasy world? Why did Elena run away? As the sun begins to set beyond the horizon, basking the coast into an orangish-red glow, Damon turns back to Elena.

"I want you to tell me why you ran away."

Elena's attention snaps back to her faux husband, and she grimaces at the question. Of course, he wants to know why, but the question sets Elena on edge for reasons she doesn't understand.

"I don't want to see my family, Damon," she answers.

"Why? It's been two hundred years. Why in this ever-more crazy world would you not want to see your family? Your brother?"

"Like you're one to talk? Didn't you got fifty years without speaking to Stefan?"

"Yeah, but he wasn't dead," Damon answers with a shrug. "Just a douche."

Elena rolls her eyes at the typical Damon response, then she tries to put to words everything she's feeling.

"Jeremy and Ric live long full lives, and I would give anything to see them again. But, that wasn't them at the house. That was…"

"That was Jeremy and Ric," Damon interrupts. "They're real, and they're here. They haven't lived through everything that they're apparently going to experience, but they are still Jeremy and Ric. Right?"

Elena isn't sure if Damon is trying to convince her or himself. She wants to agree with him, but it's hard to enjoy something you know will eventually be ripped away. Why should she emotionally invest in this Jeremy and Ric when she'll have to leave them behind eventually? It just doesn't seem to be worth the pain.

"I don't know, Damon. I just know it hurts," she whispers. Damon can see the moisture in her eyes as he brushes a strand of her brunette hair from her eyes. Elena leans her face against his hand and breaths in the familiar smell of her lover. In the distance, the sun is nearly gone, and the night sky peeks through the clouds.

"What about Jenna? You didn't mention her." Elena jerks away from Damon as though he threw ice water in her face. "What? What's wrong, Elena?"

Suddenly, the wind picks up and the waves grow larger and more violent as Elena hunches in on herself. She gathers her knees under her chin and wraps her arms around her legs. Tears stream down her face and she sobs. Damon stands up, using his hands to protect his ace from the salty wind. He glances around the beach in concern as the light furniture blows away. Lightening streaks the dark sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder, and Damon tastes the rain in the air moments before the bottom falls out.

"Elena, stop this!" He cries, but she doesn't hear him. Her face is buried in her arms, and she convulses with painful sobs.

Damon looks around for a place to escape from the rain but finds nothing on the beach. He looks up the stairs toward their New Zealand home and notices a brick wall to the left of the house. He's certain that it wasn't there before. Following his instincts, Damon races toward the wall. As he gets closer, the night darkens and the storm grows stronger. When he finally stands before the red brick, Damon glances back toward Elena to find her, the house, and the beach way off in the distance. She's still sobbing, unaware of his departure.

Returning his attention to the mystery wall, Damon examines the odd structure. The wall doesn't seem to end; rather, each end extends into forever in opposite directions. Looking closer, he finds words written in black. Each red brick has something different written on it. One big brick reads "parents" and several smaller bricks surrounding it have different memories and emotions written on them, such as "Dad taught me how to ride a bike," "Mom styled my hair for my first school dance," "Mom and Dad let me sleep with them after I had a bad dream," and "Mom taught me how to listen to my heart."

Then, Damon notices the cracks littered throughout the wall. Some are small nicks in a single brick, others scrap the surface of several stones, and a handful of cracks seem to have crumbled the entire brick, leaving only a fragments from which to read. One brick somehow seems to have wiggled forward to protrude a few inches from the rest of the wall. He wipes away the muddy gravel caked across the stone and pauses in surprise when he reads what it says, "Jenna died."

With a frown, Damon grasps the brick and tugs it free, only to have it fall into three pieces in his hands. He wipes the rain from his eyes as he tries to examine the damaged stone in the dark. Damon easily re-assembles it in his hand then turns it over to find more writing on the backside of the wall, "Mandy."

Who the hell is Mandy? Damon wonders silently. And, why is it written on the other side of the wall? What else is back there?

For some reason, this wall seems awfully familiar. In fact, he's surprised he didn't recognize it sooner. Damon has a wall just like it in the back of his mind, although he hopes his wall is in better shape. He's hidden his most heinous crimes and experiences behind the wall. Things like his expired feelings for Katherine, leaving his best friend behind to burn to death, killing a pregnant woman who happened to be his great-something niece-in-law, killing his brother's best friend, and countless other memories that only serve to dig up horrible emotions like guilt and remorse. Oh man, does he hope his wall his holding up better than Elena's. Damon quickly shoves the repaired brick back into place and even with the remaining wall.

Suddenly, Damon is back in reality next to Elena, overlooking the quarry. The nearby waterfall splashes loudly, but it's got nothing on that New Zealand storm. Damon glances at the small brunette at his side and finds her watching him in astonishment.

"What did you do?" She asks.

"I…I don't know," he answer honestly. "Do you feel better?"

She pauses to consider the question then slowly smiles. "Yeah, I do."

He smiles in return, but Damon can't help but wonder what Elena could possibly have hidden behind her wall. He slowly realizes that this version of Elena is damaged. Really damaged. Maybe, as damaged as him. Is that really the life he wants for his Elena? Is this just the result of 200 years of living? Is everyone a little fucked up after surviving that long? Or, has Damon somehow damaged Elena over the years? Has he chipped away her sanity, one brick at a time?

Then, a familiar and cold truth sinks into his bones as he realizes the cause of Elena's mental issues. The sire bond.

On the other side of town, in the midst of Mystic Falls' surrounding forest, Stefan awakens from his temporary death. Lying on his back in the dirt, he inhales a deep breath and immediately realizes what he's done. For several moments, he doesn't move, opting to stare up into the surrounding foliage as he replays the devastating turn of events in his mind. Along with consciousness, came the suffocating need to feed and the heavy guilt of hurting the woman he loves. Stefan tries to reign in his thirst. He tries to use the immeasurable guilt to weigh down his endless hunger, but as always, it's an extremely difficult battle. On the outside, he looks like a man lying on the ground and brooding at the sky above.

"What are you doing?" Jo asks from several feet away, and Stefan leaps to his feet in surprise. Adrenaline pumps through his veins and his blood-thirst demands fulfillment, and he complies. Stefan launches at the twin witches with a ferocious growl, but two steps in and he stumbles to his knees in pain. He screams at the sensation of his ribs and spine crumbling under an invisible force.

"Careful," Jo warns her sister. "He's too young to survive much of this."

"Perhaps we should stick with the aneurisms then," Lizzie offers and drops her magic wielding hand. As the pain stops, Stefan sags to his hands and knees among the dirt and leaves of the forest ground.

"We are not food," Lizzie says. "We're vampires too. Remember?"

"Sort of," Jo adds with a shrug.

"I don't care," Stefan mumbles as he lifts his head to meet Lizzie's blue gaze. "This is your fault. None of this would've happened if you hadn't shown up. She'd still be…"

"Alive," Lizzie offers when Stefan can't seem to finish his sentence, then she smiles coldly. "We didn't touch her. We didn't hurt her. We aren't the ones that betrayed her trust. We aren't the ones that tore into her. We didn't rip out…"

"Stop," Stefan begs as tears swim in his stormy green eyes.

"I know how much it hurts to kill a loved one," Jo says, stepping toward him to capture his attention. "The guilt, the pain, the loss. All of it can consume you if you let it, but you don't have to. It just takes one little…pop, and it's all gone."

"No," Stefan murmurs, shaking his head. He'd love nothing more than to disappear into the abyss of his humanity switch, but he can't. He's a ripper, and without his humanity, he'd destroy countless lives. He won't do that again. Never again. Even if he has to live with the guilt of killing the woman he loves. The bone crushing guilt that seems to suck the air from his lungs. "No. I can't."

"Why? It's so much easier this way. Without those pesky emotions, you can do what needs to be done," Lizzie says. "Like unleashing the Ripper of Monterey."

Stefan looks at the wavy-haired twin in surprise. "That's why you're here? You want me to flip my switch and terrorize Mystic Falls? Why?"

"No, we want you to terrorize the Salvatores."

Stefan shakes his head at her statement. It doesn't make sense. He and Damon are the Salvatores. If they want him to fight with his brother, why didn't they just say Damon? Why 'the Salvatores' like there's more than two of them?

Life isn't perfect. We've all had our ups and downs, and, for the Salvatore clan, it's been mostly up.

Stefan flinches at the memory of future Elena's claim from the backseat of the SUV. At the time, he thought it meant that he had a future with his Elena. He envisioned them getting married and her taking his name. But that's not what it meant. It wasn't his name that Elena took in marriage.

"You mean Damon and Elena."

"Among others," Jo says with a smile. "It looks like you're finally catching on. I'm a little surprise myself. We never knew about this awkward little triangle."

"It's almost incestuous," Lizzie grumbles with a disgusted sneer. "She's your future sister-in-law."

"No, she loves me," Stefan growls then grimaces from the pain of his statement. "Loved me."

"She's still alive, you know," Jo says with a smirk, and Stefan snaps his head up.

"What? You said…"

"I lied," Lizzie says with the same grin as her twin. "Uncle Damon managed to save her."

Stefan inhales a liberating breath at the joyous news and silently thanks his brother for stepping up. His struggle against his blood-thirst seems manageable knowing Elena still lives in the world.

"Of course he saved her. Damon loves Elena, and she loves him," Jo says, slyly glancing at her sister."

"It's really amazing how much Elena looks like Katherine. Acts like her too. Although, not your Elena. She seems so sweet and earnest, nothing like our Elena. She's cold and cruel in the future. What do you think causes someone to change that much?"

"Shut up," Stefan commands and tries to climb to his feet only to have Lizzie whammy his brain. After a few groans of pain from her faux father, she releases her magical hold on him.

"Don't you want pay back for the pain she's going to cause you? She's going to break your heart. She's going to choose Damon. Certainly now since you've nearly killed her," Jo says, watching Stefan for the response she desires.

"No," Stefan growls again. "I won't do your dirty work."

"That's a shame," Jo says as she crouches to his level. "Now, we have to do this the hard way."

Jo slowly presses a hand to Stefan's forehead and mutters a powerful spell as he struggles against invisible binds. He groans at the sensation of her fingers raking across his mind, then he screams in agony when she digs her fingers into something at the back of his consciousness. Jo yanks her hand away from Stefan as she yells the final word.

Stefan jerks as though attached to Jo's hand by an invisible strand, then he slumps back into the dirt like a puppet with his strings cut. Caroline suddenly vamp speeds to stop several feet from her family and squeals with angst at the situation.

"What did you do to him?"

"I freed him, Mother," Jo explains, backing away from Stefan as he climbs to his feet. "I freed the Ripper Of Monterey."