❪ 𝓢𝑰𝑿 𝓕𝑬𝑬𝑻 𝓤𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹 ❫ ⚰️ ˖ ׁ ⁩ 𓂃
𝚃𝚅𝙳  ⸻  ✸ 🔮⭑.ᐟ
❝ 𝖭𝖤𝖵𝖤𝖱 𝖫𝖤𝖠𝖵𝖨𝖭𝖦 𝖸𝖮𝖴 ❞

✦ ╮ 𝟐𝟏. ❝ 𝖡𝖫𝖮𝖮𝖣 𝖡𝖱𝖮𝖳𝖧𝖤𝖱𝖲 ❞ ── .✦

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦,
            𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗔 𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

❝WE HAVE TO get to the church. They're waiting.❞

Stefan and Damon stood behind a pile of trees as they listened to the men that were in the woods, gathering the vampires that were detected from the use of the compass owned by Jonathan Gilbert.

"Circle around that way. I'll distract them. Go." Stefan tells his older brother, who rushed off to do what he said, both of them wanting to save Katherine before it was took late, "Over here! There's another one! Quick! Help me!"

"Arm yourselves." Jonathan Gilbert spoke, all the men but one following after Stefan as she led them away from the carriage.

Damon rushed over to the man, hitting him in the head and knocking him out. The younger Salvatore brother came back over to where his brother was standing.

"We don't have long." Stefan tells his brother as Damon grabs the key off of the man's pocket, unlocking the carriage.

"Katherine." Damon called out softly to the carriage filled with vampires, pulling the vampire out, "Katherine."

Both of the Salvatore brothers took the ropes that held her hands together off, taking the muzzle off of her mouth.

"We're going to get you out of here." Stefan tells her, "Damon, hurry. Hurry."

A gunshot rang out into the night air, and Damon fell to the ground - dead.

"No!" Stefan rushed to his side, "No. Damon."

"Come on. Let's go."

Stefan ran to get one of the guns to hold off the men, but as he did that, he was shot and killed too.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "IT'S HARD TO see him locked up like this." Elena spoke as she watched Stefan from the cellar.

"You're the one who locked him up." Damon tells her, staring at his daughter who could only look at her uncle with tears and sadness in her eyes.

"You helped."

"I couldn't have him running around, chewing on him while the town was looking for vampires now, could I?" Damon asked.

"It has nothing to do with him actually caring about him?" Asked Elena.

"Your thing. Not mine."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
           𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬        𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

WAKING UP, STEFAN looked around him in a confused daze as he remembered that both he and Damon had died the prior night.

Unbuttoning his shirt where he was sure the bullet had killed him, he stared back at the smooth skin before noticing the bulky ring her had on his finger.

"Katherine had me make that for you weeks ago." Emily Bennett told the young Salvatore boy as she walked to him with a stack of fresh clothes for him.

"Where am I?"

Emily crouched down to sit the clothes next to him. "The quarry just north of town. My brother and I brought you here last night. We found you dead in the woods.

"Where's Damon? Am I...am I a....?" Stefan trailed off as his thoughts shifted from where his brother was, to being a vampire, to where his niece was at, "Where's Anastasia?"

"She's with your father?" Emily gave him a soft smile, "I checked on her this morning. And no, not yet. You're in transition."

"But how? I....."

"You had Katherine's blood in your system when you died." Emily tells him.

"No." Stefan shook his head in denial, "I never....."

"She's been compelling you to drink it for weeks, Stefan."

"And Damon?"

"No compulsion was necessary. He drank from her willingly." Emily tells the young Salvatore brother.

Stefan got up from his place and walked over to where his brother sat, staring out at the water that flowed from the waterfall just ahead of him.

"I woke up last night. I didn't know where I was." Damon spoke, "I went to the church. And I watched them drag her inside. Then they set fire to it. And the whole church went up in flames. They killed her, Stefan. She's gone."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹  𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬     𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "DID YOU EVER figure out what it is?" Elena asked as Damon looked at the compass that Peal had given him, the one that John wanted.

"Nope. Whatever it is, it doesn't work." Damon tells her.

"Pearl didn't say anything about it?"

"She thought she was stealing his vampire compass, but that was a pocket watch. That Jonathan Gilbert was a crazy scientist. Have you spoke to your uncle lately?" Damon asked.

"I've been avoiding him actually." Elena said as Anastasia came down the stairs, swinging her keys around her finger, "That, and I've been here most nights."

"So, you'll be here again tonight?" Damon asked.

"Is that a problem?"

"Yes." Says Damon, "You're a complete nuisance."

"Are you ready to go?" Anastasia asked, Elena having asked her for a ride while they were getting ready.

"Yeah." Elena nodded and the two girls started walking towards the door, "Can I drive?"

"With your record of bad car drives?" Anastasia held the door open for the human, "Not a chance."

"You let Jeremy drive."

"I'm not in love with you like I am him. Sorry, not sorry."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

          JEREMY WALKED ACROSS the school campus, headphones in his ears as he waited for his girlfriend to show up with his sister.

"Hey." One of the earbuds was pulled from his ear and he turned his head, finding Anna walking next to him, "Surprise."

"What are you doing here?" Jeremy frowned as the two kept walking.

"Picking up this." Anna held out a piece of paper.

Jeremy took the paper, mentally sighing as he read the words printed on it, "A class schedule?"

"Starting tomorrow, I'm officially a student here." Anna tells him.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No. I finally beat my mom down." She tells him.

"But why would you want to go to high school? It blows." Jeremy tells her, glancing around for the black Camero that was owned by his girlfriend.

"Do I really need to answer that?" Anna asked him.

"You'd suffer through all this just to hang out with me?" He asked.

"Yeah, I would."

"That's um...." Jeremy tailed off as he noticed Anastasia walking towards the school doors with Matt and Tyler, "I gotta go."

Anna watched with a frown on her face as he rushed up behing the Salvatore girl and grabbed her by the waist.

"Jeremy!" Anastasia screamed with a laugh, "What the hell?"

"Anna's here and she signed up for school." Jeremy spun her around, cupping her face in his hands, "So, kiss me."

Anastasia smirked, wrapping her arms around his neck, "My pleasure."

Grinning, Jeremy leaned down to kiss her.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
            𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬     𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

          "I BET JONATHAN Gilbert has told father by now." Stefan carried a pail of water over to where Damon was sitting so they could wash the dirt and blood off of themselves. "Wonder how he took the new that we were dead. Wonder what they told Eloise."

"As if he cares. He betrayed us." Damon ignored the part about his daughter, worried too much to think about his baby girl hearing that she lost both her uncle and father in the same night.

"He thought he was protecting us, Damon." Stefan says, "He thought he was protecting this town."

"God. This sun hurts my eyes." Damon turned away from the sun.

"It's part of it." Stefan tells him, "The muscle aches, the sick feeling.....Emily said it's our bodies pushing us to feed, to complete the transition."

"That's not gonna happen." Damon said.

"Is that your choice, then? To die instead?" Stefan asked, "To leave Anastasia all alone?"

"Isn't it yours? This is all to be with Katherine. But she's gone. I want it over." Damon says, "And I don't want Anastasia to see me as....as a monster."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹  𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "SO, ANNA'S MOM was in love with Jonathan Gilbert and he betrayed her?" Jeremy asked as him and Anastasia sat in his bedroom.

"Yep."

"And now Uncle John wants this invention-device thing that she gave to your dad?"

"That's pretty much it."

"John mentioned there were more Gilbert journals. I bet that's how he knows everything." Jeremy tells his girlfriend.

"Do we have to talk about this all night?" Anastasia moved to straddle the boy's waist, taking the book he had in his hands and throwing it to the corner of the bed as she leaned down to kiss him, "I've told you everything, way too much actually. I probably shouldn't have, 'cause that could get us both in a lot of trouble. Me, more than you."

"I'm not going to say anything." Jeremy sat up, leaning on his elbows as Anastasia's hands dropped down to rest on his hips.

"Your Uncle John wants us dead."

"Oh, you don't know that." Denied Jeremy.

"Yes, I do." The green eyed Salvatore nods her head, "He's a hater, Jeremy. Especially towards me 'cause I'm dating you."

"Well, I'm not." Jeremy brushed his lips against hers.

"No. You're something else entirely." Anastasia whispered.

"Oh yeah?" He asked softly, "And what would that be?"

"My weakness." She tells him before connecting their lips back together.

Jeremy rolled the two of them over, kissing down her beck before he brought the two of them to sit up and let Anastasia pull his shirt over his head, throwing it somewhere in the room before her's was the next to come off.

"I don't want Jenna to walk in on us."

Anastasia titles her head to the side, listening for any signs of Jenna, "Jenna's in the kitchen. She just opened the refrigerator."

"Wait. You can hear that? That is so cool." He kissed her again.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
         𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘     𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

          STEFAN APPROACHED HIS home and could hear two things - the sound of his father and Jonathan Gilbert talking, and the soft sound of his niece sleeping from her bedroom.

"May I offer you a drink, Mr. Gilbert?" Giuseppe spoke.

"Thank you, Mr. Salvatore."

"This won't take much longer."

"I want to make sure the Founders' archives are accurate."

"Be sure you document the loss of civilian life in the church." Giuseppe tells him.

"They were hardly civilians, Mr. Salvatore."

"As far as anyone needs to know, they were." Giuseppe said, "As the records keeper for the Council, what you write will be passed down through generations. Certain details should be kept only between you and me."

"For example?" Jonathan asked.

"My sons. They will be remembered as the innocent victims of the Battle of Willow Creek, not for their shame." Giuseppe says.

"Certainly, Mr. Salvatore."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹  𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "YOU KNOW, DAMON hasn't fed me vervain in a while. I could be at those bars in a flash, and you'd be dead." Stefan tells Elena as she stood at the door of the cellar he was locked away in.

"Yeah, you could. But you won't." Elena said.

"Please just go away. I don't want you here." Stefan said as Elena walked into the cellar, "What are you doing? Get out of here?"

"No."

"You're taking a stupid risk. I could hurt you."

"Then I'm stupid." Elena tells him, and picks up the water bottle filled with animal blood, holding it out to him, "You need to drink this."

"Elena, get out of here, or you'll regret it." Stefan tells her.

"Drink."

"I said get out!" Stefan shouted, slapping the water bottle out of her hand and letting his face transform.

"No."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

          "TALK TO ME, Stefan." Elena sat in the cellar with Stefan, "Why are you doing this?"

"I'm making the decision I should have made years ago." Stefan tells her.

"What are you talking about?"

"You have to feed in order to complete the transition." Stefan said.

"I know that."

"It as a choice I should've have made." Stefan tells her, "And I shouldn't have had to see the fear in my four year old nieces eyes as she watched the whole entire thing."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
         𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘    𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

          STEFAN ENTERED HIS father's office, watching as the man looks up at him in surprise as he stands up.

"Dear God!"

"Even in our deaths, you only feel shame?" Stefan asked his father.

"You're one of them now."

"No. Father, I came to say good-bye."

"I watched you die."

Stefan stared at him, "You were there hen we were shot?"

"I pulled the trigger myself." Giuseppe told his son, neither of them noticing that Anastasia had been making her way down the stairs as she had woken up to the sound of her uncle's voice.

"You killed your own sons?"

"You were both dead to me the moment you sided with the vampires. I only thank God that your mother isn't alive and Anastasia isn't old enough to see the disgrace you've become."

"I haven't turned yet." Stefan tells him, "Don't want to. I'm going to let myself die, father. Please."

"Yes, you are." Giuseppe grabbed a wooden rod, breaking it in half and attempting to stab his youngest son with it.

But Stefan was faster than he was, throwing the man against the wall which caused the stake to impale his father.

Stefan rushed towards him, "Father, I didn't mean to."

"Get away from me." Giuseppe gasped out in pain.

"No, let me help you. Please." Stefan put his hands on the stake and pulled it from his father's chest.

As he removed it, he took notice of the blood dripping from it and blood on his fingers. Slowly, he brought his hand up to his face and licked the blood from them.

Touching his father's wound, he licked up more blood, feeling his face transforming.

"Uhh. Uhh! God. What's happening to me?" Stefan gasped out, spinning around as he heard the floorboard creek behind him.

Staring up at him, fear written across her face was his four year old niece. A fearful cry left the little girls lips before she took off up the stairs as fast as her little legs could carry her, and she hid herself under her bed with the hopes that Stefan would just leave and he wouldn't hurt her like he had done to her grandfather.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹  𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "HOW CAN YOU even look at me right now?" Stefan asked his girlfriend.

"You need to be able to talk about these things, Stefan." Elena tells him, "I need to hear them. Come upstairs. We can talk about it more, and we'll keep talking as long as you need."

"You're so sure I'm ready." Stefan looked at her with tears in his eyes.

Elena pulled his daylight ring out, laying it on the cox next to him. "And when you feel the same way....I'll be upstairs."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

          ANASTASIA WALKED INTO the Salvatore Boarding house, hearing her father and Elena talking.

"This is my fault now?" Damon asked.

"No, it's no one's fault, Damon. I'm just...saying you're not exactly innocent." Elena tells him, "You've made it your life's mission to make him miserable."

Damon stood up, noticing his daughter as he looked at Elena, "Let me ask you a question. In all this important soul-searching and cleaning of the demons of Stefan's past, did you ever manage to get the rest of the story?"

"He said there was more."

Damon held his arms out for his daughter, who walked right into them and laid her head on his chest, "Yeah. That's an understatement."

Elena stood up and walked towards the two, "Damon...Damon. Tell me." She demands.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦,    𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
           𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬        𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

          "WHAT ARE YOU doing? Who is that?"

"I brought her for you. She's a gift. Have a seat, please." Stefan spoke, the girls doing what he said.

"Damon, I've been to see father. He came at me." Stefan said, "I didn't know my own strength. There was blood everywhere. He was dying, and the blood as too strong. I needed it. I had to have it."

"You fed." Damon realized.

"Yeah. And it's incredible. My bod is exploding with power, Damon." Stefan tells him.

"No."

"I can hear things from far away. I can see through the darkness. I can move, like it's magic." He started to explain to his brother, "And the guilt, the pain....Damon, I can turn it off. Like a switch. Katherine was right, it's a whole nother world out there, Damon."

"Katherine is dead, Stefan." Damon tells his little brother, standing up. "There's no world without her."

"No, you can turn that off, too. You don't have to feel the pain anymore."

"I don't want it." Damon slapped his hands away from him.

"You're weak. You'll be dead soon. You need this." Stefan held Damon's face in his hands, "You'll die."

"No, I can't."

"Please." Stefan turned to the girl, letting his fangs come out before biting into the girls neck, "Don't fight it. We can do this...together. For Anastasia."

Damon tried fighting his brother off, but Stefan kept pushing them together until finally Damon started to drink the blood of the girl standing in front of him.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹  𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "FROM THE MOMENT Stefan had his first taste of human blood, he was a different person." Damon tells Elena, still holding onto his daughter, "I suppose I should thank him. It's been a hell of a ride. Heh."

"Oh, my God. He said he wanted to die. That's hy he won't feed. Now I understand why, but...." Elena trailed off.

"His choice. If he's stupid enough to make it, so be it." Damon shrugged his shoulder.

"Don't do that, okay? Don't pretend like you don't care." Elena said, walking away.

"Where are you going?"

Elena walked down to the cellar and noticed that Stefan was gone but his daylight ring was still sat on the cot where she had sat it.

Picking it up, Elena runs out."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

          STEFAN STOOD AT the Quarry where he had forced Damon to turn against his will.

Turning around, he noticed his niece standing there along with Elena, tears in her eyes, "Eloise."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹ 𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗙𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗦, 𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗔
         𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘    𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟰

          "HOW DO YOU feel?" Stefan asked his brother.

"You were right. It is a whole new world." Damon tells him.

"We can explore it together." Stefan grinned.

"You got what you wanted...You and me for all eternity." Damon tells him, "But hear this, brother. I will make it an eternity of misery for you."

"Damon!" Stefan called, "What about Anastasia?!"

"Anastasia doesn't need to see the monster that I've become."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

╭ ‧₊˚⊹   𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬   𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟬

          "STEFAN. DAMON TOLD me the rest of the story." Elena tells him, "I thought I might find you here."

"I should have died that night, just like I had chosen. I should have let Damon die, too." Stefan didn't look away from his niece as he spoke to Elena.

"But you didn't. And if you die now, it's not gonna change what happened." Elena tells him.

"Every single person that's been hurt....every single life that's been lost, it's because of me." Stefan said.

"That night my parents died....I blew off family night so that I could go to some party. I ended up getting stranding, and they had to come pick me up. That's why we ended up in that car at Wickery Bridge. And that's why they died." Elena tells him, "Our actions are what set things in motion. But we have to live with that."

"I made a choice, Elena. Because of that choice a lot of people were hurt." Stefan said, "Including my own niece."

"No." Anastasia shook her head, "No, Uncle Stefan. You never hurt me. Okay? What hurt me was when Dad decided that taking care of me wasn't enough after he turned. But you...you stepped up and took care of me, at just seventeen years old. You took care of me even when you were off the rails and then you turned me because I was dying. And....if that means that you're killing yourself right now, then.....you're doing the same thing that Dad did 133 years ago. You're leaving me. And I've already lost so many people do that - Dad, Kol, Daniel, Mom. I can't lose anyone else."

Stefan let a tear roll down his cheek as his niece turned around on her heels and walked off.

"You also made the choice to stop to reject the person that the blood made you." Elena told him. "You made a choice to be good, Stefan. And an even better Uncle."

"No." Stefan shook his head, "Please don't do that."

"That's the person who jumped in the water to save the family whose car had driven off the bridge."

"Please, don't make this okay."

"That's the person who saved my life." Elena said.

"You don't understand, Elena."

"Then tell me."

"It hurts me. It hurts me, knowing what I've done, and that pain...that pain is with me all the time. And every day, I think that if I just....if I just give myself over to the blood. I can make that pain stop." Stefan says, "It would be that easy, and every day, I fight that. And I am so terrified that one day, I'm not gonna want to fight that anymore, Elena. and the next time I hurt somebody...it could be you. It could be my niece."

"There will be no next time."

"You don't know that." Stefan shook his head.

"Maybe I don't. But what I do know, is that you can take this, throw it in the quarry, and let them sunrise, taking you away from Anastasia, the one person who needs you the most. Or you could take this ring and put it on and keeping fight." Elena gave him his ring and kissed him, "It's your choice." She starts to walk away.

"Elena." Stefan spoke, making the human girl pause and turn to him. He put his ring back on before running to Elena and kissing her passionately.

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

         "LITTLE BOY LOST." Damon spoke as Elena and Stefan walked into the house.

Anastasia laid on the couch, having come home and cried herself to sleep there.

"I'll be upstairs, okay?"

"Okay."

"Goodnight, Damon." Elena walked away.

"Thank you." Stefan tells his brother.

"No, Stefan, thank you. You're back on Bambi blood, and I'm the big badass brother again." Damon said, "All is right in the world."

"I mean it. Thank you. For...helping her take care of me." Stefan sat by his niece's feet.

"You brood too much...Everyone on this planet is not your fault. My actions, what I do, it's not your fault. I own them. They belong to me. You are not allowed to feel my guilt." Damon tells his brother.

"Do you feel guilt?" Stefan asked.

"If I wanted to, it's there." Damon watched his brother stand up, "Emily waited till after I turned to tell me she'd been successful in protecting Katherine with her spell. She didn't want me to know about the tomb. She thought it would impact my decision."

"She didn't want either one of us to turn." Stefan said, "She said it was a curse."

"Witches....Judge little things."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Cause I didn't want you to know. 'Cause I hated you and I still do."

"I know."

"But not because you forced me to turn." Damon said.

"Then why?"

"Because she turned you. It was just supposed to be me, Stefan...just me."

Stefan watched his brother walk out of the room before turning to where his niece was resting. Standing up, he picks her up and held onto her body tightly as he walked up the stairs and into her bedroom, flicking the light on so that he wouldn't trip over the shoes he was sure would be on the floor.

Laying her down, he brushes her hair back from her face before pressing a kiss to her forehead, "I'm never leaving you, kiddo. I love you, Eloise."

Stefan pulled the covers over her body before standing up and walking towards the door.

"Uncle Stefan."

He turned as he went to turn the light back off and shut the door, "Yeah?"

"I love you, too."