CHAPTER TWENTY

The Gilbert siblings are currently painting Ric's old bedroom in their house because... Well, because why the hell not? This room is on its second dead family member, it might as well be a new color. Be just a little different.

"Going darker, huh?" Stefan asks as he walks into the room.

"It's the only color we had." Elena tells him as she turns toward the doorway.

"That's what happens when you decide to paint your dead guardian's room in the middle of the night." Jeremy says.

"I don't suppose anyone tried to talk to you guys out of doing this...so soon." Stefan says.

"Actually, yeah. Dean did." Nyx tells him. "I just don't seem to listen to him very often."

"We have to keep moving. Otherwise we'll start thinking, and we don't want to think." Elena says.

"You want a hand?" Stefan asks.

"So, are you two, like, back together or something?" Jeremy asks, looking between the two of them.

"What? No, Jer, we're just—" Their sister starts.

"I was just checking up on you guys, seeing how you're doing." Stefan tells them. "After, uh... After everything."

"We're fine. But if you are trying to be the good guy again, why don't​ you do the right thing and give us one day." Jeremy says. "Just one day without any vampires in it."

He walks out of the room then, clearly upset, and Nyx goes​ with him to his own bedroom. "Hey." She lays down on his bed.

"I'm not—"

"You have every right to feel the way that you do, Jer, I'm not coming in here to say anything about what you said to Stefan." She tells him. "I actually agree, if I'm being completely honest."

"So, why are you in here?"

"Because as much as we fight and disagree on things... You're probably my best friend as well as my annoying little brother. And I happen to genuinely like being around you."

"I'm sorry." He says as he sits down next to her. "For being a dick."

She shrugs. "You've been through a lot. I'll give you a free pass."

"I'm gonna go downstairs, you wanna come?" He asks as her phone starts ringing, making him smirk. "Tell Dean I said hi."

She answers the phone as he walks out of the room. "Hey."

"Hey." Dean greets.

"Jeremy says hi." She says, then hears her brother laugh from the top of the stairs.

"Are you alright?" Her boyfriend asks, and she takes a deep breath.

"I'm fine. I just miss you." She tells him.

"You're fine?" He asks, and she hears the doorbell ring for the second time.

"I'm as close to it as I'm gonna get until you're here." She tells him. "How far are you?"

"We'll get there in the morning."

"Klaus is here." Jeremy says as he walks back into the room.

"What?" Nyx questions as she sits up on his bed. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"Who?" Dean asks.

"I don't know. Stefan and Damon are dealing with him." Jeremy tells his sister.

"Who's there?" Dean repeats.

"Klaus." She answers.

"We'll be there tonight." He tells her, then hangs up the phone.

Nyx sighs as she looks back at her brother. "Let's paint." She says as she gets to her feet, and they go into Ric's old room.

"Where is she?" Stefan asks as they're about to get back to painting.

"I don't know. She was just here a few minutes ago." Jeremy tells him.

Stefan quickly turns around and walks away from them. Nyx simply shrugs and turns back to the paint, but less than a minute later, they hear Damon yelling downstairs and then something shatters. They immediately put down the paint brushes and leave Ric's room.

The door bursts open as they get to the bottom of the stairs, and Jeremy quickly grabs his sister and pulls her back toward him. Klaus throws something into the house, and it almost hits Damon, but he ducks out of the way.

"Missed me!" Damon yells.

Klaus has pieces of a wooden fence. He breaks the second one he has in half and then throws one at Damon.

"Missed me again!"

Klaus then looks at Nyx and Jeremy, and her eyes widen when she realizes what he's going to do next. She quickly gets in front of her brother just as Klaus throws the second half and it goes into her stomach. She screams, and Klaus turns around and walks away.

"Nycole!" Jeremy yells as she leans against the wall. "Why would you do that?"

"You're my little brother." She says, her voice shaky, and Stefan suddenly kneels down in front of them. "It's my job...to protect you."

Stefan pulls the wood out of her stomach, and she groans in pain as she grabs her brother's hand. Stefan bites his wrist, and she shakes her head.

"Nycole, listen to me. I know how you feel about using vampire blood to heal yourself, but if you don't drink it, you will die... And the twins won't have a mother." Stefan tells her.

"Fine." She reluctantly agrees, and he feeds​ her his blood.

"We have a problem." Damon says as he walks over to them. "Ric has Caroline and Elena at the school."

"What?" Jeremy questions as he looks up at him.

"Ric's dead." Nyx says as Stefan helps her stand up.

"Actually, he's not." Stefan tells her.

Klaus walks back onto the porch with a gasoline tank and a newspaper that he set on fire. Nyx rolls her eyes at his desperate attempts to get what he wants, and Stefan walks over to him.

"Put it out." The younger vampire says.

"Come outside and make me." Klaus antagonizes him.

He steps out onto the porch. "Elena's not here. Alaric has her and Caroline. He's going to kill them both unless you turn yourself over to him."

Nyx goes into the kitchen to get something to drink to wash the taste of Stefan's blood out of her mouth. She grabs a soda from the fridge, and Jeremy walks over to her as Bonnie and Damon head over to talk to Stefan and Klaus.

"Don't​ ever do that again." Jeremy says, and she looks at him. "You can't die saving my life. I couldn't live with that."

"That's fair." The brunette nods. "But I couldn't live if you died, and I didn't try to save you."

"I have my ring. If Klaus killed me, I'd have just come back." He argues.

"And I'd rather die than watch what happened to Ric happen to you." She tells him, and he just looks at her.

—

Jeremy and Nyx are sitting outside of the high school, and Bonnie and Damon walk over to them. They're at a picnic table, and Jeremy's sitting on top of it.

"Hand it over." Damon says.

"I'm not giving you my ring." Jeremy tells him and then turns to Bonnie. "Let me do this."

"By my math, you've already bit it once, possibly twice, wearing that thing, and if for some reason Bonnie can't restart your heart and you do indeed die, then before you know it, we have another psycho alter ego case on our hands. Which is bad. So, give me the ring." He demands.

"This is my ring, Elena's my sister. No one's​ going to fight harder for her than me." He says, and Nyx clears her throat as she looks at her younger brother with a raised brow. "Than us." He corrects, and Nycole nods.

"Fine. Be stubborn." Damon concedes, and then turns to Bonnie. "Try not to kill him."

"Look at this." Klaus says as he and Stefan walk over to them. "One big happy family."

"Drink this." Bonnie says as she hands something to Damon. "It's my blood. It bridges us all together so that when I stop Jeremy's heart, you'll have the power to stop Alaric's. You need to make a physical connection to his bloodstream: a vein, an artery, something connected to his heart."

"One of us gets a clean shot, take it, the other two hold him down." Stefan tells the others as he takes the vial of blood from his brother.

"Before we all walk through these doors, let's get on the same page, shall we?" Klaus says, looking around at each of them. "I was the one who created your vampire bloodline, therefore I am responsible for your lives. And Tyler's life, Caroline's life, Abby's life, and yours if you're not careful." Klaus adds as he looks at Nyx, and she narrows her eyes at him.

"So, I should probably stop telling you to go to hell." She says sarcastically.

"Or you're just lying to save your ass." Damon says.

"I'm not lying." Klaus says. "Go ahead, call my bluff. Let the teacher kill me, you'll all die soon thereafter."

"Let's just get this over with, shall we?" Stefan says as Klaus drinks the last of the blood in the vial.

The three vampires head into the school, and the others make their way into the woods to wait for Bonnie's portion of the plan. Jeremy lays on the ground, and Nyx and Bonnie sit on either side of him.

"They made contact." Bonnie finally says after a long wait. "It's happening." She puts her hands over his heart and starts chanting a spell.

The wind picks up around them, and Nyx looks at the trees as the branches and leaves blow in the breeze. It stops suddenly, and she looks back at Bonnie.

"What's wrong?" Jeremy asks.

"Something happened. The connection broke." She tells them.

The three are sitting there, waiting for what seems like forever before the boys finally make contact again. The wind picks up just like it did before, and Bonnie starts chanting the spell all over again. Jeremy's breathing changes and then his head falls as his entire body relaxes.

Black lines run up Bonnie's hands, arms, chest, neck, and face like when a vampire dies. Nyx eyebrows furrow as she looks from her to Jeremy, who's dead on the forest floor. Bonnie turns to him as the lines disappear, and she says something else in Latin.

"Bonnie." Nyx starts to panic when nothing happens.

Bonnie starts shaking his shoulders frantically, and Nyx looks at her. "Oh my God! Jeremy!" She yells, and Nycole sits forward more.

"Bonnie, do something." She says, and he gasps suddenly​. "Oh, thank God."

—

"Hey, give me that." Nyx takes the bag of chips from Tyler, and he chuckles as he looks down at the brunette.

"What are you guys doing here?" Elena asks as she walks into their kitchen.

"Welcome to our victory party!" Care cheers.

"What victory?" She questions. "We failed. Alaric's still out there."

"We know, but we've been trying to get rid of Klaus forever, and Caroline convinced us to enjoy it." Bonnie explains as Elena walks over to their group. "For a night."

"Got to be honest," Matt starts. "I'm a little pissed none of you let me take down original brother number two." He's the one who killed Finn.

"Yeah, we would have taken you right down to the hospital, bro." Tyler says, and Nyx laughs as she looks between the two of them.

"What are you talking about? I'm more stealth than that. I'm like a ninja." He argues, and she looks at him with a raised brow, highly amused.

"You wish." Jeremy says.

"How much have you had to drink?" Nyx teases, and Matt shrugs, making her laugh at him.

They all start messing around as they pass around the bourbon to pour in their cups. Nyx lightly pushes Tyler, and he chuckles as he walks away from her. She walks over to Bonnie and puts her arm around her shoulders. The witch looks at Nyx and smiles.

"Alright, let's drink." Caroline says.

"I do not condone this, by the way." Elena says as she looks at her brother.

"We survived Klaus. Alright, make an exception." He says, and she smiles at him. "You can go back to being responsible tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's supposed to be my job anyway. I am the oldest." Nyx smirks, and their sister laughs.

"Okay." Elena agrees.

"Hang on. Do you guys hear that?" Tyler asks, and they all turn and look at him. They all listen, but all there is silence. "That is the sound of a Klaus-free life." He says, and they all laugh.

"To a Klaus-free life." Elena says, and they all raise their glasses. "And to all of you. My family."

"Cheers!" They all yell before taking a drink and enjoying the moment.

"Alright, who's escorting me back to the hospital?" Nyx asks, and they all look at her.

"We will." Tyler tells her, and Caroline​ nods.