CHAPTER THIRTY

"So, I can't send us back physically...but I can probably send a part of us back." Kai says as he looks at each of them.

"Probably?" Nyx questions.

"You remember the movie Ghost? Okay, well, Bonnie and Jenna are gonna be Demi Moore because they're the alive ones, obviously. And, uh, we'll all be a collective Patrick Swayze — the ghost." He explains. "By the way, how much does that suck? About Patrick Swayze?"

"Will they be able to see us or not, Kai?"

He smiles. "I don't know, I've never done this before. So, let's all just take a deep breath, right? Close our eyes. And..." He starts chanting as they close their eyes.

There's some wind and then they all feel a sudden jolt. When they look around, the place looks similar, but different.

"What happened to the pool table?" Damon asks, and they all turn to look. It's gone and there's a dining table.

"Oh my God." Elena mutters.

"Hey, remember my crappy birthday dinner at that stupid table?" Nyx asks.

"Um... Excuse me, but that was a masterpiece." Damon argues, and she looks at him.

"The garlic bread was burnt."

"That was Jenna's fault." He reasons, and she rolls her eyes.

"Bonnie?" Jeremy suddenly runs for the table, and they all turn around. "Bonnie!"

"She can't hear us." Dean says when she doesn't react to Jeremy at all.

"Jenna." Elena smiles when she sees their aunt walk over to sit with her.

Damon tries to knock over a bunch of glasses, but his hand just goes right through. "We can't touch anything either."

"Nice spell, Kai." Nyx mutters as she walks over to the two women.

"This place is my own personal hell." They hear Damon's voice from over by Bonnie.

"Drama queen." Bonnie says.

"The video diaries!" Nyx yells and then runs over.

"Reporting to you live from Retro World, I'm Bonnie Bennett—" She's on a new clip.

"And I'm Jessica Moore." The blonde smiles.

"Joining us today in the studio is a special guest Damon Salvatore." She says, and Nyx chuckles, but then she sees what Bonnie's reaching for on the table.

"Damon." Her smile falls as she gets his attention, and he looks at her.

"No." He steps forward when he sees the bottle of alcohol in Bonnie's hand.

"What?" Elena asks, confused, and they all look between the two of them.

"That bottle of bourbon is the oldest one in the house." He says as he looks between the two women sitting at the table. "We made a pact, if we couldn't take being trapped here alone for one more day, we'd... We'd kill that entire bottle." Damon looks at Nyx.

"And then we'd kill ourselves." Nyx tells them, and they all look between Bonnie and Jenna.

—

They all gasp as they suddenly wake up on the floor, no longer in the prison world. "Wait, what happened? Why are we back here?" Elena asks as they all look around.

"I don't know. The spell must require too much magic." Kai says as he wipes blood from his nose. "I lost my connection."

"Then reconnect." Damon tells him as they all get to their feet.

"It's not that easy. You see this blood?" He asks. "That's not a good sign."

"Bonnie and Jenna are going to kill themselves." Nyx says.

"Can they do that?" Jeremy asks. "Can they die there?"

"I couldn't. Of course, it was my own personal solitary confinement. Didn't want me to end my sentence by killing myself​." Kai says. "Ooh, I tried every method in the book. I drove down to DC because there was this museum that has an actual guillotine."

"We get it, for whoever's not lucky enough to be you, dead means dead." Dean says, wanting him to shut up as he looks at Nyx and her siblings.

"We have to stop them, we have to give them hope. Send them a message somehow." Elena says.

"How? They couldn't hear us." Jeremy says.

"The message is already there." Damon tells them. "In the atlas. I scribbled some notes on Nova Scotia, we just have to get them to see it." He says as Kai sits on the couch.

"How do we open an atlas if we can't touch anything?" Stefan questions.

"We need to get Kai to crank up his witchy-woo, don't we? So, we can make physical contact." He says as he walks over to him.

"All while sending the six of you back over there? Sure, yeah." He says sarcastically and cuts short what he's about to say when Nyx walks over to him. "Yes, honey?"

She holds her hand out to him. "Give me your hand." She says, and he looks at her with a puzzled expression.

"Now, you're flirting with me?" He asks with a smirk. "I don't think your boyfriends like that very much."

"Give me your hand, Kai." She repeats, and he places his hand on hers.

"Well, look at you." He cocks his head to the side. "Our own little magic generator."

"And the siphon who needs a pick-me-up."

"What's going on here?" Damon questions, and Nyx looks at Elena as she moves away from Kai.

"The angel's keep saying that magic's in our blood, right? Dying and coming back magnified it, so did that excruciating mind link." Nyx says. "So, we've got all this power, and he needs a little extra..." She shrugs.

"Nyx..." Stefan gets her attention, and she looks at him.

"We'll be alright." She tells him, giving him a reassuring smile. "Try not to worry so much."

"I'll need you to stay with me, even over there." Kai tells Nyx, and she looks back at him. "But I still don't know how I'll be able to send everyone back."

"What if you just send me?" Jeremy asks.

"That might work." He nods. "I focus all of my magic on one person. That and Nyx should be enough of a boost that he could physically interact. If I can hold the spell."

"And if you cannot?" Damon asks.

"The magic overwhelms me...and I can't pull Jeremy and Nyx out, they'll be stuck over there for eternity." He tells them.

"Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen." Nyx says. "What do you say, little brother? You and me? And the...empathetic sociopath?"

"You inspire such confidence." Jeremy says, and she chuckles. "I've trusted you my whole life, I'm not gonna start doubting you now." He tells her, and she smiles at him.

Kai gets up, and Nyx helps him set up what he needs. They end up sitting together on a footrest, and he takes her hand as Jeremy lays down on the couch. He starts chanting and the three of them close their eyes.

Stefan paces back and forth by the fireplace, and Dean sits on the arm of the couch opposite the one that Jeremy's on. Damon leaves the room, worried about the three women currently involved in this situation, and Elena follows him upstairs to his bedroom.

—

"Okay, 1990, let's do this." Jeremy says as they walk into the kitchen in the prison world.

"Where's the stupid map?" Kai questions, and Nyx points it out on the table. She stays at Kai's side, holding his hand, as Jeremy goes to get it.

"It's working." He says as he picks it up.

"Hurry up and find Nova Scotia." He tells him, and Jeremy flips through the book.

"Nova Scotia, got it." He says, but then the atlas falls out of his hands. "What?"

"Kai?" Nyx looks at him as he starts gasping.

He looks down, and she follows his gaze to see blood pooling up on his shirt. He looks at her, and then they're pulled out of the prison world.

Kai's gasping beside Nyx, and she looks around the room, seeing both Stefan and Dean out cold on the floor.

"No! What are you doing?!" Jeremy yells as he gets off of the couch.

Nyx turns and sees Liv behind her and Kai, she stabbed Kai with a fireplace poker. The three of them suddenly fly in different directions, and Nyx groans. Jeremy's knocked out, and his sister quickly crawls over to the man that's closest to her — Dean.

She can't wake him up, but he seems fine — nothing like the last time they were in a similar position. Nyx then makes her way over to Stefan as Liv and Kai have a power struggle. She finds that Stefan's fine too, so she goes to her brother.

Nyx hears Liv begging Kai to kill her, but he just holds a candle toward her. He threw alcohol all over her, so if the flame touches her, she's dead. But he's struggling with himself. He can't bring himself to do it.

"Motus!" Liv yells, and a fork flies across the room before embedding itself in Kai's shoulder, and Nyx gets Jeremy to his feet.

Jeremy picks up a knife and throws it at Liv, it hits her shoulder. Nyx picks up the ascendant from the floor and then they pull Kai up off of the floor. Damon is yelling Nyx and Jeremy's names from upstairs, but they carry Kai into the kitchen, ignoring him.

"Send me back. Please." Jeremy says Nyx sits with Kai on the floor.

"Jeremy, look at me." He says as he looks up at him. "I'm half dead."

"I need to stop Bonnie and Jenna." He argues frantically as his sister places one of her hands over the open wound to Kai's stomach.

"Okay." Kai nods.

Nyx gets one of her legs between the counter that Kai's leaning against and him so that she can sit facing him. Her other leg is bent between them as she places her free hand on the wound to his back.

"I need to keep pressure on both of your wounds so that you don't bleed out." Nyx says. "Put your hand over mine, siphon that way." She gently moves her hand that's on his stomach.

He nods and puts his hand on hers exactly like she said, placing his fingers between hers. Then he starts chanting. They end up in the prison world again, and seeing as Kai can't die there, he's able to get up off of the kitchen floor.

They go back into the living room and find that Bonnie and Jenna haven't left the table in the dining room. "Cheers to making it this far." Bonnie says, and they clink their glasses together; both of them have tears in their eyes as they drink the last of the bourbon.

Nyx looks up at Kai, and she sees real remorse in his eyes, watching them cry because they're alone and can't get back to their family. He looks down when they move closer together and set the glasses down on the table.

"I think it's time we cut ourselves off." Jenna says, and Bonnie agrees.

Bonnie breaks a glass, and Jenna picks up the video camera. The girls walk past the other three, having no idea that they're even there.

"Stay here." Jeremy says, and Nyx nods. He then follows after them.

"Let's have a seat." Nyx says, and she then pulls Kai to the couch with her, seeing as they have to stay together so that he can keep drawing magic from her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Might as well. We have nothing better to do while he's with them." He says as they sit on the couch.

"You had every reason to kill Liv just now. She was going after you, you're dying now because of her. If you had killed her, you'd have just been protecting yourself — no one could argue it wasn't self-defense. Hell, she wanted you to do it." She says. "You threw the alcohol on her, had the candle in your hand...but you couldn't kill her, I saw it."

"You want to know why."

"I want to know if it's just because Luke loved her." She looks at him. "Or was it your own feelings that made you stop?"

"I thought it was Luke." He nods.

"Until you saw Bonnie and Jenna."

"He's never even seen Jenna before, I doubt he knew that she ever existed." He tells her, and she nods as he looks down at their hands. "Feelings are hard." He says, and she laughs. "And now you're laughing at me."

"No. No, I'm not laughing at you." She shakes her head. "I'm actually laughing at myself. When I was a vampire​, there was a very short time that I flipped the humanity switch. I didn't feel anything. I didn't care about anyone, not even myself. During that time... I didn't love Dean, I didn't care about our kids, and... I thought that it was easier that way, and I guess it was, but..."

"But?"

"But I would rather feel pain than nothing at all. Losing people sucks, and it can be crippling. It can feel like you'll never be okay again and the world's about to end."

"Are you trying to make me miss being a sociopath?" He questions, and she chuckles.

"But that's just the bad parts, and that's an unfortunate part of life." She looks at him. "I hope you get to feel the good parts too. Getting to love someone so much that you'd kill for them. It sounds twisted, but... The moments that you're with them." She shrugs. "It makes it worth all the bad."

"Like what?" He asks, genuinely curious.

"Like falling in love. Or having a family." She smiles. "When I saw my kids take their first steps, it was the proudest moment of my entire life. I made those two little humans, and they're incredible. They're only two, but they have such life. Alex is always running around and trying new things, he's a little adventurer. Ever's a little more reserved and cautious, but once she sees that Alex likes something or he can do something, she has to try it too. Like she's following his lead."

"I'm sorry." Kai says, and she looks back at him. She'd looked away, thinking about the twins as she spoke. "I'm sorry that I made you so afraid that you were gonna lose them."

"You really are, aren't you?" She asks, and he nods. "And you promise this little siphoning thing we got going on won't kill me?"

"As long as we're not in here too much longer." He tells her, and she nods.

"I need you to try as hard as you can not to hurt me too much here."

"For them?"

"Not just them." She sighs. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Who am I gonna tell? Nobody likes me." He says, and she smirks.

"I'm pregnant." She says, and his eyes widen as he looks at her. "A little over two months, and, yes, Stefan knows. He, Jo, and Jess are the only ones who know so far. She found it through a blood test the night of your merge."

"I'll do my best not to hurt you." He says, and she smiles.

"Thank you." She says, and he nods.

"Now, can I ask you something?"

"Might as well." She smirks.

"What's with the triangle — you, Stefan, and Dean?" He asks, and she sighs.

"I don't know."

"Are you still in love with Dean?" He asks, and she takes a deep breath, but she doesn't answer him. "Are you in love with Stefan?"

"We haven't been together long enough for that." She says, and he narrows his eyes as he looks at her.

"You've known him for years." He says.

Nyx doesn't get the chance to say anything else before Jeremy walks back in. They both turn to look over at the teenager. "They're gonna be okay, we can go back." Jeremy tells them, and they stand up from the couch.

—

Nyx, Kai, and Jeremy all wake up in the kitchen in their own time and universe. Damon fed his blood to Kai, healing him, so he's gonna be fine.

"Hey, hey." Stefan's kneeling down at Nyx's side. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She nods as she looks up at him. "I-I'm okay." She tells him, and he sighs in relief.

Dean sighs as from where he's standing behind Damon and he relaxes. He then turns his back to them. He's glad that she's okay, but he doesn't want to see her with Stefan.

"Bonnie and Jenna — are they..." Elena trails off and everyone looks at Jeremy.

"I saw them. They're gonna be okay." He tells them.

"You can let go of me now." Nyx says as she looks at Kai.

"Oh. Sorry." He lets go of her hand. He wasn't siphoning magic anymore, he just hadn't moved his hand yet.

Stefan helps Nyx to her feet, and Kai then stands up as well. He looks down at his ruined shirt and then starts to leave the room.

"Hey, Kai?" Nyx calls, and he looks at her.

"Yeah?"

"About our conversation... If you really do feel remorse for the questionable things you've done — believe it or not, that means there's hope for you." She tells him.

"You really think so?" He asks, and she nods.

"Yeah, I do. Everyone in this room — we've all done terrible things, both for and to each other. Like when Damon killed Jeremy."

"I thought we weren't talking about that anymore." Damon says, and Nyx smirks at him.

"Or when Elena threatened to kill Dean so that I'd turn my emotions off."

"I've apologized to you both." She says defensively.

"Jeremy tried to kill Elena."

"That wasn't my fault!" He defends.

"Stefan turned Jeremy into a supernaturally-charged Hunter."

"Yeah, I deserve that." Stefan nods.

"Dean and I have both killed people because it meant saving his younger brother — one of my best friends."

Kai looks around at each of them before turning back to Nyx. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because I saw you in there, and I don't believe that you're a lost cause." She says. "And I believe that you're genuinely sorry for your threat. I'm not saying I forgive you, but I'm also not saying that I never will. We've all forgiven each other more times than I can count. You keep up the way that you helped us today, actually become a better person... I don't know." She shrugs. "Maybe there's some form of forgiveness in there for you."

"Thank you."

"Thank you." She smiles. "You helped save my aunt and my friend today."

"You're a good person, Nyx." He says, and she shrugs.

"I try." She says. "I'll give Jo your letter, but I can't promise you anything else. What you did to them eighteen years ago... Well, that's not my place to comment on." She tells him, and he nods before leaving.

"Aw, you're so cute." Damon says as he wraps his arms around Nyx.

"Get off of me." She shoves at him, and he laughs as he lets go of her. "You know, you were way less annoying when you were still in love with me."

"That's because I couldn't do things like that back then." He tells her. "Now I can and it doesn't mean the same thing."

"Stop touching me." She says, and he smiles.

Nyx tries to run, but Damon easily catches her and wraps his arms around her. She struggles as he hugs her and then she starts laughing. He lifts her up, and she starts swinging her legs, but not to kick him.

"That must've been an interesting four months." Elena says, and they look at the other four who are watching them.

"You have no idea." Nyx laughs as Damon lets her go. "I am never playing Monopoly with Damon again."

"I wasn't cheating!" He says defensively.

"I was still a vampire then, I saw you do it!"

"Okay, someone seriously needs to separate them." Jeremy says, and they both laugh as they look at him.