CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Prom's tonight. You going?" Damon asks as he looks at Nycole on the couch in his living room.

"Why the hell would I do that?" She questions as she turns to face him.

"Hm." He nods. "And you don't care at all that Carter left to help Dean look for Sam, who was kidnapped by demons?"

"Nope. You have fun at prom though."

"Oh, I'm not going to prom." He tells her. "I have been tasked with watching you to make sure that you don't kill anyone. Or pull an Elena." He says, and she smiles.

"So, it's just you and me?" She asks as she stands up. "Maybe we should take advantage of the opportunity." She says as she walks over to him.

"Yeah, I don't think so." He shakes his head, and she trails her finger down his chest.

"Oh, come on, Damon. You know you want to." She steps closer to him. "You've been in love with me for as long as you've known me. Here's your chance."

"The problem with that—" He grabs her hand, pulling it off his chest. "—is that you're not you right now."

"What difference does it make?"

"All the different in the world." He says. "So, turn your​ emotions back on and go back to your boyfriend and your kids."

"And that's really what you want?" She questions, an amused smirk on her face.

"I want Nycole back." He then walks away from her.

—

"Oh, look, it's my boyfriend. That didn't take long." Nyx says sarcastically​ when she sees Dean as she's walking out of Mystic Grill.

"Are you aware that Stefan and Damon are torturing Elena?" He asks, and she nods.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, I heard she tried to kill Bonnie at prom. Twice." She says. "Oh, and April Young — poor girl, she's had it rough. First her dad blows himself and eleven other people up, then a Hunter almost bled her dry at her dad's funeral. Then that same Hunter kidnapped her, Jeremy, and Matt. And she somehow ended up being Rebekah's friend, that's just cruel. I'm really not even sure what her purpose is in our friend group though. She's kind of annoying."

"Do you even hear yourself right now?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You can't really be this far gone." He shakes his head. "Where's the woman that I love?"

"She's gone." Nyx says as she walks over to him. "You ruined her. Why do you think she broke up with you? Why do you think it was Damon who helped her get the feds off her back?" She asks, and his eyebrows​ furrow. "Yeah, I lied. Matt was supposed to do it, but then Henrikson showed up at an inopportune time. Damon was there, and he was believable as my boyfriend. Feeding the twins, his arms wrapped around me, kissing my cheek." She laughs as he starts to look angry and hurt.

"You're more like Katherine than Nycole."

She shrugs. "That's because I've done away with those pesky little feelings. I wasn't in love with you, Dean. I was broken, and you were this intriguing older guy with a dark secret. We slept together, and I got stuck with you. I told myself that it was love to make myself feel better about the whole thing. Yellow-Eyes was right — you were just a distraction. And now...you're nothing."

"Well, that was nasty." Damon says, and she turns to look at him. "That was a level of bitchy I didn't know you could stoop to." He snaps her neck and then catches her when she starts to collapse.

"That wasn't​ the plan." Dean says as he looks at the raven-haired vampire.

"You were taking too long. I think I actually started aging again."

"Sorry. I got a little distracted by my emotionless girlfriend telling me about how you were playing Dad with my kids and convincing the FBI that you two were dating."

"You can punch me for it later." He tells him, then disappears with Nycole.

—

"Why am I tied up in Damon's room?" Nyx questions as she looks around.

"We wanted to keep you separate from your sister." Stefan says as he walks over to her.

"Oh, is this an intervention?" She chuckles. "How long are you gonna keep me tied up for? As long as Elena has been?"

"As long as it takes." Damon tells her.

She leans her head back and sees the bed a few feet away. "Do you remember the last time we were in here?" She asks as she looks over at him. "We were all cathartic, talking about our feelings. It was the first time I told you I loved you." She says, and Dean looks between the two of them. "Jealous?" She smiles.

"That's pathetic." Stefan says.

"The second time was after we all thought that Klaus died." She says. "Do you see a pattern here? 'Cause I'm starting to."

"You really are a bitch." Damon kneels down in front of her. "What are you trying to do?"

"I thought reminiscing was a part of the therapy, talk about fond memories." She says. "Like that time Dean threw a glass cup at my head."

Both brothers look at him as Dean looks at the floor with a sigh.

"Oh, not to worry. We had a nice, long talk while he was hung over the next morning, it was a beautiful heart to heart moment." She tells them. "I reassured him — again — that I didn't​ have any romantic feelings for Damon whatsoever. Rather insecure — that one."

Irritated, Damon then injects her with vervain. "We'll be back for you later." He says and then they leave as she slowly drifts off.

Dean and Stefan go back into Damon's room a little while later to check on Nycole, but she's still unconscious in the chair that they tied her to.

"Can you find memories in her head?" Dean asks.

"Yeah." Stefan nods as he looks at him. "Why?"

"We were talking once, and she told me about when she first realized that she had feelings for me." He tells him.

"You want me to show it to her?"

"No. I want you to show her the first time I realized that I had feelings for her." Dean says, and he nods. "We were training at her family's lake house. It was the first time she beat me, knocked me on my ass."

Stefan chuckles. "Sounds like her." He closes his eyes and focuses on the unconscious girl a few feet away from them.

"Damn." Dean says as he pushes himself up off of the ground. "I'm impressed."

Nyx laughs. "It is about damn time."

"Don't get over confident, just because it happened once, doesn't mean it'll happen again."

"I just kicked your ass." She says with a smile, and he's trying not to smile himself.

"Let's see you do it again." He says, moving toward her.

She ducks under his arm as he swings, and she punches him in the stomach. He moves toward her faster, and she knocks his arm out of the way as he tries to grab her. She then kicks him, and he stumbles backward.

Nyx takes a swing at him, and he grabs her arm and twists it so she turns. Now, her back is to him. She swings her other arm back and elbows him in the ribs. He lets go of her, and she quickly turns back around.

He goes at her, and she tries to hit him again, but he grabs her wrist and then her other arm. He pins them to her sides and pushes her back. She hits a tree and he looks at her.

"Whatever was holding you back before, it's definitely not a problem now. You've gotten a lot better." He tells her.

"I'd say it's the teacher, but let's be honest here... I'm just that good of a student." She says, and he laughs.

She leans her head back against the tree and then lifts it again. That's when she realizes that he's still holding onto her and their faces are only inches apart. She looks at him and finds that he's looking at her lips. A small smile spreads across her face, and he looks up to meet her eyes again.

"Again." Dean says as he lets go of her and backs up, getting back into a starting position.

Nyx groans as she wakes up. "That was pathetic." She says as she looks at them.

"It's not pathetic." Dean says as he walks over to her. "It's us. You can pretend that you don't feel anything for me, but I know better. I know you." He says, and she scoffs.

"You don't know anything." She shakes her head. "You think that showing me a piece of our past is gonna make me come crawling back to you? Why would I want to feel anything, Dean? You're gonna​ die. Sam will die. All of my friends. Our kids. And I'll still be here. Forever. So, why should I care, when soon I'll have nothing left to care about?"

He nods as he stands up straight and then walks out of the bedroom. "Dean!" Stefan calls after him and then sighs before following him back downstairs.

"When you convinced me to save April Young's life at the prom, I realized that I could be a better person." Rebekah's​ saying to Matt as Dean and Stefan walk into the living room. "And I'm grateful for that."

"You wanna be a better person?" Dean asks, and they both look at him. "Then go upstairs and get Nyx to flip the switch."

"Me?" The blonde questions. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"She hates your family. Klaus killed her right after telling her that she was pregnant. It was his threats that made her go into early labor — we almost​ lost the twins again." He says. "Then she was sitting at home waiting to hear if her friends were gonna be okay, the doorbell rang, and she thought it was me, but it was the guy that you compelled to kill her so Ric would die too. She's a vampire now because of you — everything she hates about herself is because of you. Showing her what she lost isn't gonna bring her back, everything she's already lost is what she's afraid of facing."

"And you want me to do what exactly?"

"Show her everything she'll miss." He tells her. "Make her see what she will lose if she doesn't come back."

"Stefan can do that." She says, and he shakes his head.

"It has to be you. It was Stefan's blood in her system, but it was you who killed her."

"Alright."

Rebekah goes upstairs and she stops in front of Nyx. She takes a deep breath and focuses on everything in Nycole's head.

"That's my boy." Dean smiles as Alex crawls from him to Sam.

"Come here, buddy." His uncle picks him up and walks over to Caroline.

"What is this?" Nyx asks as she looks over at Rebekah. They're now standing in Meredith's living room.

"I heard you have a thing for milestones." She says as the scene suddenly changes, the twins look a little bit older. "You've just missed the first time your son crawled. And now you're missing your daughter's first steps." She says, and Nyx turns.

"Hey! Attagirl, princess." Dean cheers as his daughter starts walking away from the coffee table that she was using to hold herself up before.

He moves over closer to her and takes her hands. He follows behind her as she clutches his index fingers and keeps going.

"Their first time without trailing wheels on their bikes." Rebekah says as the living room turns into a park. "How much more do you want to miss out on?"

"You really think this'll​ work?" Nyx questions.

"Haven't seen enough yet? Okay." She nods as the scene morphs again. "How about a mother-daughter dance that your little girl can't go to?"

They look at an older version of Everly as she sits on a bed and cries. Dean walks in, and she tries to hide it, but he sits down beside her and hugs her. She starts crying into his chest as he tries to comfort her.

"Prom?"

The twins — now teenagers — are getting ready for a dance. Dean walks in with Sam and the four of them joke around. Caroline and Bonnie show up, making the twins take all kinds of pictures in their nice clothes. Then Damon's threatening Everly's date while Stefan's telling Alex that he better be respectful with his own.

"This is ridiculous." Nyx shakes her head​, but Rebekah can see that she's starting to get angry.

"Graduation?"

The twins walk across the stage, and Nyx sees Dean in the crowd; he has tears in his eyes as he claps alongside his brother.

"Everly's wedding?"

Dean walks her down the aisle, and there's an empty seat next to where he sits after giving her hand to her soon-to-be husband.

"Alex's big news?"

He's telling​ all of Nyx's friends something that she can't hear. Then Caroline freaks out and she touches the stomach of the woman next to Alex. His wife's pregnant.

"The birth of your first grandchild?"

They're in a hospital room, and Alex is holding his newborn son while his wife sleeps. Dean walks in, and they both have tears in their eyes as they talk quietly.

"I've seen enough." Nyx says through clenched teeth.

"But this is only what you'll miss in the twins' lives. What about your own?" Rebekah asks as she looks at her. "You'll never get a wedding."

The next scene that materializes is Matt walking her down the aisle, to where Dean's standing with Sam behind him. He has a smile on his face and tears in his green eyes.

"What about your friends' weddings?"

She sees Meredith in a wedding dress. And then Caroline and Tyler together. Bonnie in a long white gown. Matt in a tux. Sam.

"When they have kids of their own?"

Each of them with their own families. It looks like Caroline​ and Tyler may have even adopted a baby.

"And who's been missing from this whole thing?" She asks. "You and Elena."

"You know who else is missing?" Nyx looks at her. "Jenna. My father. Ric. Jeremy. All people that your family has taken from me."

"And for that, I'm sorry. I wish—"

"Sorry?" She questions.

"You're sorry?!" Nyx yells as she manages to push Rebekah out of her head.

She leans forward and then throws herself back. The wooden chair breaks, and she picks up the splintered piece of the arm of the chair before rushing at Rebekah.

"Your family ruined mine, and all you have to say is sorry?!" She shoves the piece of wood into Rebekah's chest just as Stefan runs in.

"Nycole!" He grabs her and pins her to the wall on the other side of the room as the blonde vampire falls to the floor, momentarily dead.

Damon kneels down beside the blonde original and pulls the wood out of her chest. "I'm impressed." He says, looking up at Nyx. "I should've known you could get out of the chair if you really wanted to."

Dean runs in then with Matt right behind him as Nyx's fighting against Stefan. The whites of her eyes are red and the veins are showing as she looks from Stefan to Damon.

"I got out of the chair the same way I did back in St. Louis." Nyx says, immediately gaining Dean's attention, he'd been looking at Rebekah before.

"St. Louis?" Dean asks.

"I never did tell you the whole story." She says. "I woke up in a room, tied to a chair with a man who looked like you standing in front of me. He was rather handsy. Kept touching my arms, running his hands up my thighs. Why do you think I didn't want you touching me for so long after that case? Why I didn't want to sleep in the same bed as you anymore?"

"She's angry." Stefan says, his eyes briefly moving to Dean. "She's just lashing out because of what Rebekah showed her."

"Last time I checked, anger was one of those pesky human emotions." Damon says as the brunette continues to fight against Stefan's​ hold.