Damon, moaning, forced his eyes open.

          “Damon…?”

          He froze. He knew that voice all to well.

          Elena.

          But her tone made his heart beat at a fast, nervous pace. She sounded like she was in pain.

          “Elena.” He grunted, forcing his eyes open again.

          She was lying on a cold cement floor a few meters away from him, and there was a deep, bloody gash on her cheek. Her hands were shackled together, more blood flowing from chafing at her wrists. Her legs were tied together with rope that looked rough and tight, and the entire right side of her face was slowly turning purple with bruise.

          “Elena.” He gasped, his eyes widening in horror. He tried to move toward her, but gave an agonized cry when his wrists, waist, and legs burned. It wasn’t a pleasant fire, like the one caused by Elena’s kisses. It was a painful, acid like burn that seemed to be melting through his skin every time he tried to move.

          “Vervain…” she whispered, her eyes losing focus. “They soaked your chains in vervain…”

          His eyes grew wider.

          “Who? Who did, Elena? Who did this to you?”

          She didn’t answer him, though. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she lost consciousness again.

          “Elena!” he roared, straining against the chains anchoring him in place. He ignored the burning, the only thought on his mind helping her.

          “Sad, isn’t it?”

          Damon gasped, looking beside him to find Klaus, smiling wickedly at Elena.

          “It’s your fault, you know.” He said. “If you had just let me have her for a few hours, I could have taken the blood and let her go. But, you just had to run…”

          Klaus rubbed Damon’s cheek with a vervain clove, and Damon snarled, fighting back a cry.

          “It’s a shame it had to come to this, really.”

          Klaus stood up and walked over to Elena. Mercilessly, he shoved a needle into her arm, sticking a tube in and letting the blood drain into a bucket beside her.

          “No!” Damon yelled, fighting against the chains again.

          “Fighting it will get you no where, Damon.”

          Damon, panting with fury and exertion, looked up.

          “Stefan.” He spat.

          Stefan grinned.

          “You just had to learn it the hard way, didn’t you, brother?”

          “Stefan, don’t you get it?” Damon roared. “You love her! We both do! But Klaus is compelling you not to feel it…!”

          Stefan dumped a bucket of liquid vervain down Damon’s body, and he gave an agonized roar.

          Klaus chuckled.

          “Just give up, Damon.”

          “NEVER!” Damon roared, continuing to fight his restraints.

          “Oh, for the love of all that’s good, put him out, Stefan!” Klaus said, rolling his eyes.     

          Stefan pulled out a vervain injector and knelt beside his brother.

          “No!” Damon roared, sinking his fangs into Stefan’s arm.

          Stefan yelled in anger, smacking Damon across the face and plunging the needle into his neck.

          Damon groaned and passed out again.

VvvvV

          Elizabeth walked down into the basement of the diner and frowned at the sight before her.

          “I’ve done my part.” She said icily. “Now, I want my freedom.”

          Klaus chuckled, walking up to her, giving Damon’s cheek a poke with his shoe on the way.

          “You want me to uncompel you?”

          Elizabeth nodded, glaring.

          “I’ve been forced to run from you for the past seventy-five years, and I don’t want to do it anymore.”

          Klaus grinned, reaching where she stood.

          “You want to break the compulsion I put on you to run?”

          Elizabeth glared.

          “Yes, I do!”

          Klaus continued to grin.

          “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

          Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

          “Yes, it is!”

          Klaus shrugged.

          “Alright.”

          He then plunged his hand into her chest, pulling out her heart and tossing it on the ground.

          Elizabeth fell to the floor, and Klaus sighed.

          “She should have just kept on running, eh, Stefan?”

          Stefan nodded from his spot beside his master.

          Across the room, Elena began to stir.

          Her stirring turned to whimpers as the pain in her arm sat in.

          Klaus walked over and knelt beside her.

          “Not feeling well, love?”

          Tears fell from Elena’s eyes.

          “Please stop.” She begged.

          Klaus stroked her cheek.

          “It would never have happened in the first place if you had just died like you were supposed to. Not that I’m complaining, of course.” He grinned. “You’re blood is very useful to me.”

          He dipped a finger in the bucket, now half full of blood, and licked the blood off.

          “I must say, Elena; you have the most divine blood I’ve ever tasted.”

          She whimpered, her eyes falling on Damon, unconscious again.

          “What did you do to him?” she asked, tears falling more rapidly.

          “Oh, don’t worry, love. He’s just getting what he deserves.”

          “No.” Elena whimpered, shaking her head. “He doesn’t deserve this. He was only trying to protect me…”

          “Oh.” Klaus made a face of mock sympathy. “But that’s exactly why he deserves it. This could have been much easier, and much less painful for you, if he’d just let us check you into the hospital for a while.”

          Klaus’s eyes drifted down to the necklace at Elena’s throat, and he furrowed his brow.

          “That’s not Rebekah’s.”

          He turned his head.

          “Stefan? Have you seen this before?”

          Stefan walked over and knelt beside them.

          He frowned when he saw the necklace.

          “Yes, actually; it was my mother’s. She gave it to Damon when she died. He must have given it to her.” Stefan grinned. “Did he tell you the little story that goes with this piece of junk?”

          Elena glared.

          “Yes, he did.”

          Stefan grinned wider.

          “Did he also tell you that it should have been mine?”

          “He told me the entire story, and it should never have been yours! Just because your mother was fooled by whatever spell you cast doesn’t mean I’ll be.”

          Stefan pretended to pout.

          “Hurtful, Elena!” he laughed. “But, how, as a four year old, could I have cast a spell on my mother? I was just your average mortal boy…”

          Elena glared.

          “You were no average little boy. You were a spoiled brat from the day you were born, and it’s your fault that your father treated Damon the way he did!”

          Stefan laughed.

          “Is that really what he told you?” His face grew serious, but there was still a glimmer of a laugh on his lips. “My father hated Damon because Damon wanted to be hated. He was the little brat; always showing off for the girls and his friends.”

          Elena resisted the urge to slap him; mainly because she couldn’t if she wanted to. Her hands felt paralyzed.

          “You don’t know him like I do. I would believe his side of the story any day.”

          Stefan laughed.

          “Oh, you absolutely slept with him. I can tell. You would never defend him like this if you hadn’t. He also wouldn’t have told you the story of our mother’s death unless he screwed you first-”

          “Shut the hell up, Stefan.”

          Damon was awake again, and his eyes were dark with fury.

          Stefan laughed, appraising his brother.

          “What are you going to do if I don’t? You look pretty immobile there, brother.”

          Damon gave a humorless grin, shaking his head.

          “I’m so glad you get to see this, Elena. You get to see who my perfect brother really is.” His lips were pursed in an angry line.

          Stefan laughed.

          “Oh, and I suppose you’re a perfect angel?”

          Damon glared.

          Stefan turned back to Elena.

          “You know, I always wanted this locket, just so you couldn’t have it.”

          He reached for it, attempting to pull it from Elena’s neck.      

          He roared and yanked his hand back when it started to smoke.

          “What the hell…?” he snapped, his eyes angrily falling on Elena again.

          Elena, eyes wide, turned her head to look at Damon.

          The ghost of a grin was hidden in his face.

          Stefan stood up and stormed over to his brother.

          “What the hell did you do to it? Vervain?”

          Damon shrugged and shook his head, a full blown smug grin covering his face now.

          “Nope. How would I have been able to give it to her if it were filled with vervain?”

          Stefan grabbed his brother’s neck in a strangle hold, pinning him to the wall.

          “What-did-you-DO?”

          Damon simply shrugged again.

          “Who knows? Maybe Mother was a witch and you just never knew?”

           Stefan snarled.

          “I knew everything about her; some things you could never dream of! She told me everything, because I was her favorite. You meant nothing to her, Damon! NOTHING!”

          Damon’s grin faded away and the glare he gave Stefan was terrifying.

          “You shouldn’t have said that, little brother.”

          “Oh? What are you going to do about it?”

          Damon’s mouth turned up in an angry grimace; there was nothing he could do. He was chained to the floor AND to the wall! 

          “Interesting.” Klaus said, eying the necklace. “Very interesting. The gift given to the brother who supposedly meant nothing to the mother burns the other.”

          Both Stefan and Damon turned their heads to Klaus.

          “What?” Stefan snapped.

          “Well, don’t you think it’s odd that,” he picked up the necklace delicately in his fingers, “I can touch it, and he can touch it, but you cannot?”

          Stefan glared and stormed back over, closing his entire hand over the locket. He yowled in rage when it burned his hand.

          To his horror, he couldn’t re-open his hand. It just kept burning.

          Elena’s eyes widened in shock, as did Klaus’s.

          “Stefan, let it go!” he yelled.

          “I can’t!” Stefan roared, his eyes wild.

          “LET IT GO!” Klaus ordered, and was horrified to see that his compulsion had no effect over whatever spell was keeping Stefan’s hand closed.

          Stefan continued to yell as the burning moved up his arm. He pulled his hand back, breaking the chain from Elena’s neck.

          She gasped as Stefan stumbled back, falling in a puddle of vervain left from when he had doused Damon.

          Somehow, with the simplest tug, Damon’s shackles snapped open.

          He rubbed his wrists in shock for a few seconds, before leaping up and, teeth bared, running at Klaus.

          “Damon, no!” Elena screamed, but he didn’t listen.

          He collided with the Original, throwing him into a wall with power that he never knew he possessed.

          Elena gaped in shock; how was he doing this?

          Klaus glared.

          “I would let me go if I were you.”

          “No,” Damon snarled. “I don’t think I will.”

          Klaus yelled in anger, throwing Damon across the room.

          Elena screamed, horrified, and tried to sit up.

          Damon collided with the wall, sending splinters of wood through the room.

          He hissed furiously when one lodged itself in his leather jacket.

          He ripped it out, and his eyes widened when he realized what type of wood it was.

          “Well, well, well…” he chuckled, and broke a long shard off of the wall.

          He knew attempting to kill Klaus would be the stupidest, most reckless thing he had ever done.

          But he had to try. He had to free Elena of the constant burden of being hunted down.

          Running forward, he pinned Klaus to the wall again, and the Original roared in frustration.

          “You idiot! You moron! YOU BASTARD!” Klaus yelled in his face.

          “You forgot a name.” Damon said, grinning.

          “And what would that be?” Klaus snapped venomously.

          Damon grinned.

          “Slayer.” He said, plunging the white oak spear into Klaus’s chest.

          Klaus grunted, and his eyes widened in horrified shock.

          “…how…?” he rasped, before his face mummified and he fell to the floor, going up in flames. The stake burned and turned to dust, and Klaus was left, charred and unmoving, at Damon’s feet.

          Elena gaped in shock, as did Damon. Both were silent.

          “Is he… dead?” she finally whispered.

          Damon, unable to believe it himself, nodded slowly.

          “Really dead? He can’t come back again?”

          Damon nodded again, still trying to process that he had honestly just killed Klaus.

          He turned his head toward Elena.

          “He’s gone.”

          Elena let out a breath that she must have been holding for months now, a huge weight finally off of her shoulders.

          “Elena…?”

          She turned her head.

          Stefan was lying on the floor, his eyes wide.

          Dread seeped into Damon’s stomach. If Klaus was dead, the compulsion was broken. Stefan was free…

          But Elena was glaring at him.

          “Stay away from me.” She snapped venomously.

          Stefan’s eyes grew sad.

          “Elena, I didn’t mean anything that I said or did…”

          Elena just shook her head.

          Damon cautiously walked over to her side and knelt beside her.

          “Let me see your arm.” He said quietly, and she held it out to him.

          He gently removed the tube from her arm, placing his thumb down to stop the bleeding.

          She winced.

          “Sorry.” He said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

          She nodded.

          He bit into his arm, letting the blood flow.

          “Here,” he offered it to her. “It will heal you.”

          For a moment she looked like she didn’t want to accept, but the pain convinced her to give in, and she relaxed into his arms, letting him place his wrist at her mouth.

          Damon lifted his thumb from her wrist, wiping the blood on his jeans.

          After a few minuets, he gently pulled his arm away from her mouth.

          “Better?” he asked.

          She nodded.

          “Thank you.”

          “Come on,” he gave her a small smile and picked her up. “We’re going home.”

          She smiled, relaxing in his arms.

          Damon paused in front of Stefan.

          “I’ll be taking this, thank you.” He said, snatching the necklace from his hand.

          “I… I’m sorry…” Stefan tried.

          “Sorry won’t fix things, Stefan.” Damon snapped, and then walked over to the stairs.

          Carrying Elena up the stairs, he walked out of the diner and ran to the car.

          “Ready to go?” he asked.

          It was snowing again, and Elena smiled.

          “In a minuet. I have to do something first.”

          Damon furrowed his brow in confusion.

          “What do you have to-?”

          Elena cut him off, placing her lips on his.

          Once again, their skin seemed to catch fire.

          But this was one fire Damon could definitely live with, and could never again live without.