I do not own TVD or TO.

This is going to be an alternate take on The fifth/sixth season of The Vampire Diaries, and the third/fourth/fifth season of The Originals.

It's based on a theory I had at the end of season five of TVD.

May 2, 2012

12:01AM

She coughed, sputtered and cried, but no matter how much water she regurgitated she couldn't breathe. Her shirt and lap were soaked through and her vision was all but gone, hazy around the edges as if she were staring through the gloom of deep water.

She was drowning on dry land, on drenched leather seats.

"Damon…" she turned with what little energy remained. Tears poured down her cheeks to mix with the water.

He was panting; she thought she saw something wet on his shirt, but if it was blood she couldn't smell it.

She didn't have the time to be afraid of what that meant for her.

"I know…"

She didn't feel him take her hand. She didn't hear the crash. She didn't draw another breath.

Bonnie stood alone in the cemetery, rubbing her upper arms. She had been on the verge of freezing for a while; ever since she began straddling both worlds. On one side was the warmth of early spring, but on the other a fall fog drifted between the tombstones.

Tiny clouds rose from her mouth.

She felt the shift before she saw them. It was a sense of being watched that raised the hair along the nape of her neck.

They appeared at once. Dozens of travelers surrounded her, converging as one on her waiting body. She gritted her teeth against the explosion of pain dancing across her nerves.

The familiar voice brought her eyes up again. She breathed a sigh of relief when he brunette ran through the trees at a human clip. She had been afraid Damon wouldn't drive fast enough to keep her friend from drowning.

"Elena," a small smile lifted her lips, "did it work? Are you?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "For a moment I thought Damon was too late…" she looked around the cemetery. "Did he…"

Bonnie blinked slowly and opened her mouth. She didn't know what to say. She hadn't seen him in the crowd of travelers.

"I'm right here," a voice called through the trees.

"Okay," Bonnie nodded. "When you guys pass through me you're going to wake up with your bodies on the Other Side. You need to get back here as fast as you can."

"Okay," Damon nodded.

Together they reached out and grasped Bonnie's hand. A weight settled over Bonnie's chest as her skin caught fire again.

Everything was on fire.

Pivoting on her heel she saw the charred remains of the car and burning skeleton that she knew was her.

"Did you seriously wear your seatbelt?"

Elena turned to find him surveying the wreckage with a cocked eyebrow. She threw her arms around his neck.

"What are you doing here, Ric?"

"Come on," he spun her towards the gaping hole in the wall. "You have to go."

"But Damon," she shook her head. "I've got to find him."

"You have to go home to your brother," Alaric shook his head. "I'll find Damon."

"I can't," she exclaimed. She had to find him. She had to know he made it back.

"Elena," Alaric took her shoulders in a strong grip, "get out of here. You don't have time to waste. Go," he let her loose.

She gave the Grille one last look before nodding.

Alaric watched her shrinking form as she ran back to Bonnie, and glanced at her charred remains. He located Damon a few minutes' later inches away from a large pile of ash.

"I can't find Damon," Elena gasped, clutching a stich in her side. She knew Alaric had wanted her to go straight to Bonnie but she had still looked along the way.

"You go," Stefan nodded to Bonnie, "I'll wait for him."

"I'm not leaving without him!" Elena placed her hands on her hips.

"Elena…" A tremor cut Stefan off. He yelled over the rumbling ground. "This place is falling apart."

"No!"

Stefan met Bonnie's eyes. They shared an almost imperceptible nod.

Bonnie reached out.

Elena gasped, drawing in breath she hadn't realized she needed. She shook off Caroline's arms and turned to Bonnie.

"Why would you do that?"

"I couldn't leave you there," Bonnie gritted her teeth. "He'll make it."

"Who?" Caroline looked between her friends. "Who's missing? Where's Stefan?"

Before Bonnie could answer she began coughing violently; blood flew from her mouth, coating her chin. Arms caught her when her knees buckled.

Caroline and Elena's voices overlapped as they asked if she was okay. Their eyes widened when Stefan appeared from nowhere.

"No," his eyes bulged when he looked up and saw Caroline and Elena.

"Stefan?" Caroline interrupted his string of 'no'.

"I was just trying…" he looked up. There was a mixture of sorrow and guilt in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Caroline took his arm.

Stefan drew in panting breaths.

"She fell…" he met Caroline's eyes, "… I was just trying to… Damon…" he turned his attention to Elena, "… he's not there yet."

"This isn't happening," Elena shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. She watched and waited with baited breath.

It was a moment before Alaric appeared, but his reassurance fell on deaf ears when Bonnie vanished from view.

She knew grief; they were not strangers by any means. To her grief was an old friend, lingering in the dark waiting until it was time to draw her into an all-encompassing embrace.

There was something different this time.

She was numb.

She had said nothing after returning from the crypt, leaving her friends in the living room of the rented house for the room she had shared with him. She stared at the bed until the sky lightened and felt nothing.

Desperation took hold of her. Grief was meant to be heartrending, not numbness. She took slow steps to the window and stared out at the rising sun while pulling the blue gem from her finger.

The ring turned a slow circle as it fell.

She waited for the burn while holding the drapes; she wanted to feel, but she wasn't suicidal.

She stood, braced until her muscles ached, for the burn that never came.

And only after the sun had warmed her cold skin and danced over her arms did she turn away.

In the bathroom she broke open the plastic casing of a razor and with a deep breath she drew the blade across her wrist twice.

Her heart gave a flutter when she didn't heal.

"What the hell are you doing?" Caroline snapped. She flashed into the small bathroom and snatched the razor from Elena's shaking fingers. "You might be a vampire, but that doesn't mean you can go around slicing into your own veins."

A steady stream of water washed away the crimson liquid in the sink.

A deep frown marred Caroline's features when she shut off the water and bright red droplets began staining the sink again, running with the remaining water in streaks down the porcelain. She looked up, meeting Elena's eyes in the mirror.

Rivers of blood trickled down her elevated wrist, inching down the olive skin. Every few seconds it would drip, falling from her elbow into the sink. Elena stared at her arm, growing light headed.

Caroline caught her when she swayed and lifted her friend to sit on the counter. Snagging a washcloth, she lowered Elena's arm under a new stream of water and wiped until she was clean.

Caroline examined the crossed lines as more blood bubbled to the surface.

"Ric?" Caroline bent, pulling the first-aid kit from under the sink. "Bring up the orange juice and a glass."

A part of Elena still hadn't grasped what had happened, so her brows lowered in confusion as Caroline carried on what appeared to be a one-sided conversation.

"Grab one of those muffins too…" Caroline applied an antibiotic cream to the cuts. "Yes, I know they're a little old, but she needs the sugar…" She wrapped Elena's wrist in a clean bandage and took a gentle hold of the brunette's forearm.

"Caroline?" She felt like a small child, trembling on the counter as her mom cleaned out the scrape she had gotten when she fell off Jeremy's skateboard: scared and confused. "What's happening to me?"

She already knew, but like a child she had to be told; she needed someone else to confirm, to tell her she was not suffering from an overactive imagination.

"You're alive," she breathed, "I don't know how, but you're alive."

Caroline leaned closer, as if in a trance and allowed her nose to graze the smooth column of Elena's throat, inhaling the rich smell of human blood racing beneath the skin. Normally the smell of fresh blood would awaken her hunger, but she had hopped into first aid mode when she realized.

"It's because she died human," Alaric stepped into the small space and pressed the cold glass into Elena's hand. "Bonnie knew the minute she touched her."

"Your death was different than the others." He caught Elena's eyes when she looked up. "They burned and you drowned; Bonnie sent me after you."

"But the spell…" Elena shook her head. She sipped the orange juice at Alaric's urging. "It… only supernaturals can cross to the Other Side. I was human."

"You were never human, Elena," Alaric frowned, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Katherine was a witch," Caroline looked up, realization dawning in her eyes.

"No," Elena murmured, "she was a traveler." She vividly remembered the sensation of being trapped in her own mind when her psychotic ancestor took control.

"I hadn't even thought of that." Alaric tilted his head. "You're a doppelganger."

Drop a review please and let me know what you thought of this first chapter.

It never made sense to me why Elena was so worried about the both of them dying as vampires. Her worrying about Damon I get, but she was always a supernatural, and I feel like she and the writers completely forgot about that little fact during the season 5 finale.