CHAPTER FOUR | FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

IT WAS REMEMBERECE DAY IN MYSTIC FALLS, AND IT WAS WIDELY CELEBRATED. Mystic Falls was a town that suffered an incredible amount of loss, so it was only fitting that they had an occasion to celebrate that loss. Damon and Evelyn hoped that taking Stefan for a drink to go over the past one-hundred-and-sixty years help him remember everything else that he had forgotten. Everyone in the Grill was gathered around tables and raised their shot glasses as they celebrated fallen loved ones and family members.

"This town always so upbeat about dead people?" Stefan raised an eyebrow as he watched the dozens of people in the bar cheer about Uncle Steve, who was apparently dead, then they took a shot.

"Not usually." Evelyn chuckles softly once she lowered her shot from the air and downed it. "But I guess death happens so often in this town, now it's just an excuse to get hammered."

Damon nodded in response, then placed his tumbler of bourbon onto the table in front of him. "Well, in the theme of morbid town tradition, you go back to the 1820s when everyone was so paranoid about the cholera-thing that they would occasionally bury a body before it's time."

Stefan slowly nodded in understanding while he furrowed his brows. "So, we have a holiday dedicated to burying people alive?"

"Well, they were so paranoid that they would actually request to be buried with a string attached to a bell above ground. Then, the whole family would hang around the grave for twenty-four hours in hopes of hearing the bell and that their loved ones would come back, but not it's really just a kick-ass excuse to get hammered."

A waitress headed over to the table and started to clear up their empty shot gasses and the trio a smile. However, Stefan's attention was taken by the pulsing vein on her neck. "Hey, can we get another round in please?" Evelyn asked with a smile cast on her face, just as the woman nodded and walked away.

Stefan blinked a few times with a look of confusion across his face as he looked between Damon and Evelyn. "What the hell was that?"

"That, my brother, was you jonesing for something a little stronger than a blood bag," Damon vaguely explained with a sigh.

"So, what's the problem? You spent the whole day trying to convince me I'm a vampire. I'm convinced. Now let me act like one."

Evelyn pushed her hand onto the vampire's chest, in case he made any sudden movements. "Sorry, Stef. No can do." She watched Stefan glare harshly toward her. "I mean, there are two different types of vampires, okay? There are ones that can control their bloodlust, and then there's you. A Ripper."

"Well, I'm no shrink." Stefan shrugged, then he turned to Damon. "But, maybe killing our father, and turning into a vampire, and all the trauma associated with that is what made me become a vampire, who feeds on people and rips their heads off. But now I don't have all those memories and all that guilt, maybe the Ripper thing won't be such a problem."

"Let's not try it out, okay?" Damon gave him a small, worried smile.

The trio's conversation was swiftly interrupted by Elena, who wandered straight over to them with a smile on her face. Her eyes set on Stefan, hoping that he would recognize her. "And here I thought catching up on nearly two centuries would be a drag."

Stefan's eyes fell to Elena. He couldn't deny the sudden attraction that ran through his veins when he looked at her. "Remind me of your name again." He smiled as she slid herself into the booth.

"Elena." Elena smiled effortlessly at the attention he was paying her.

"Elena. Right."

"You haven't told him about me?" The doppelganger raised an eyebrow toward Evelyn and Damon and gave them a confused look. She thought she surely would have come up in conversation.

"Two-hundred years is a long time." The eldest Salvatore scoffed.

"We kinda wanted to start him off with the easy stuff. You know, before we delved into that treasure chest." Evelyn shrugged as she grabbed the refilled shot glass in front of her and downed it.

Stefan lifted himself from the table and headed away from the group and toward the bar. "So, Mr. and Mrs. So-far-so-good. Mr. and Mrs. We-know-what-we're-doing."

"Hey, Evelyn and I never said we know what we're doing." Damon quickly defended once he downed another shot while Elena pulled her phone from her handbag. "Who're you calling?

"Bonnie." The doppelganger stated simply. "A witch did this to him. Maybe, a witch can undo it."

"Except, Nobody's heard from Bonnie since she left, plus her dad's just died. Give her a little time to grieve before we drag her back to all this crazy." Evelyn tilted her head as Elena nodded and placed her phone onto the table. "Look, until she calls us back, let's just let him do what he's doing."

"Fun, carefree, drunk-Stefan without a hundred years of vampire guilt on his shoulders." Damon nodded in agreement with his girlfriend.

"That guilt came from a blood addiction that might still be hardwired in his brain," Elena commented with a light shrug while Evelyn rolled her eyes.

"You take one philosophy class and now you're the queen of nature versus nurture?" Damon asked her as sarcasm dripped from his words.

Elena turned her head in the direction of where she expected Stefan to be, but he was gone. "Hey, where'd he go?"

The eldest Salvatore turned himself around too. "You guys don't see that cute, little waitress anywhere, do you?"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The group has found Stefan attempting to feed on the waitress from the Grill, and it was clear that his blood lust was still a major problem for him, even without his memories. Stefan immediately stopped walking and raised an eyebrow at a gravestone that caught his eye. "What kind of name is Honoria Fell?"

"Sh. You're kind of the one who killed her." Damon explained, then guided his brother inside the Salvatore crypt. "Hindsight being 20/20, way too much temptation at the bar, so if this Ripper gene is biological, then we need to minimize human contact until we can get your brain all witchy-wooed back to normal, so here it is."

"So, this is the family crypt, huh?" Stefan folded his arms across his chest as he glanced around while Evelyn and Elena continued to light candles by the entrance. "Anybody in here I didn't kill?"

Damon chuckled softly while he held a bell in his left hand. "Well, we've covered our father who art in Hell," He rang the bell, while Evelyn snorted. "Uncle Zach, my bad." He rang it again. "On the bright side, our mother died of consumption." Damon rang the bell once more.

"Oh, good." Stefan retorted with sarcasm while Elena just chuckled.

Evelyn was leaned on the rocky wall of the crypt her eyes following Stefan around as he examined the place just as Damon pulled his phone from his pocket. "Right. Evelyn and I have got to go see a man about a witch. Party on without me. Brother, for you." He handed Stefan the bottle of Bourbon. "This is for you." He gives the bell to Elena.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

At the request of Jeremy Gilbert, Evelyn and Damon hurried back to the Salvatore house. They hoped that Bonnie was with the Gilbert boy so that she could fix Stefan, and restore him to his original broody-self. Damon furrowed his brows as he entered to see just Jeremy. "Okay. Where is she? Call her. Get her here."

"That's the problem. I can't actually call her. No one can." Jeremy vaguely explained as he got up to his feet and stood in front of Damon and Evelyn, who furrowed their brows. "I've been lying to everyone for months. And, I can't keep lying, knowing that everyone's waiting for her to swoop in and save the day."

The brunette vampire tilted her head. "Jeremy. What're you talking about? You're not making any sense."

"Think about it. I was dead. I wasn't supposed to come back."

"Yes, exactly. The beauty of Bonnie-Magic." Damon rolled his eyes and stepped closer to the Gilbert boy. "Which is what we need right now."

"You're not hearing me. Magic finds a balance. I'm not supposed to be here." As Jeremy spoke, realization spread across the two vampires' faces like a wildfire. "You can't just bring somebody back from the dead. There is always a price to pay for it."

"No. Jeremy, she's not— that's not possible." Evelyn shook her head as tears began to form in her eyes. She knew what Jeremy was getting at, so did Damon.

"She didn't show up at her dad's funeral. Nobody has spoken to her all summer."

"Don't say it, Jeremy." The Salvatore shook his head, desperate not to hear the words— to hear the truth.

"Bonnie's dead." As soon as Damon and Evelyn heard the words fall from Jeremy's lips, all they felt was an overwhelming feeling of numbness.

"No, no. Oh, my God." Evelyn cried out.

"Damn it, Jeremy! Do you realize what you just did? Why would you say that?!" Damon in a complete rage walked straight over to Jeremy and pulled him into his embrace.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Once the news of Bonnie's death had broken, Evelyn, Damon, Elena, Caroline, and Matt all headed to a tree stump in the middle of the woods. They owed it to her to give her a proper funeral, a real send-off. Jeremy stood next to it with a bell in his left hand. Each person held an item that represented Bonnie in their eyes.

Caroline stepped forwards and placed her cheerleading pom-poms down onto the stump and then hurried back over to Evelyn's side. Matt placed down a lifeguard whistle, then Elena poured a handful of white feathers onto the stump before she hurried back into Caroline's embrace. Damon walks forward slowly. He set down Bonnie's grimoire and walked back beside Evelyn, who then headed over and dropped a silver necklace down.

"We ring this bell in honor of Bonnie." Jeremy finally spoke up as everyone returned to their places. "In remembrance of her." Jeremy rang the bell before he placed it down then turned to his left as if he was talking to someone. "I don't know what else to say." Jeremy nodded at the blank space that they could see, before turning to them. "She says that she's not going anywhere, she's been here all along."

"Evelyn." Jeremy set his sights on the brunette who stood, engulfed in Damon's hold. " Bonnie has watched you. She said she's never seen you happier, more alive than you are right now— with Damon. You have everything you deserve, and she's so proud of you for getting it."

Evelyn smiled slightly, then Jeremy turned to his sister. "She saw you happy, too. Finally living for yourself and starting over. And even though you can't have a normal life and you think you have to be there for everyone but you don't. So, you're gonna repack your things, you're gonna get back to college and you're gonna laugh."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Matt," Jeremy explained for the benefit of Matt, who emailed Bonnie dozens of times but got no response. "You know she would have sent you three-hundred emails back if she could. She misses you."

Matt smiled, took a breath, and watched Jeremy finally turn to Caroline. "Caroline. She watched you decorate that dorm room like your life depended on it. And she knows that college isn't everything you expected and you feel like something's missing but—" Jeremy paused and noticed the Lockwood boy hurry through the woods. "Tyler."

As soon as Caroline heard Tyler's name, she turned around and noticed he was stood there with a white rose in his grasp. The Forbes girl gasped and threw himself into his hold.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───