Keeping My Distance

thirty two

Sometimes it's better not to talk. At all. To anyone. About anything.

The floor feels cold against my back, but it's comforting. It's something solid to ground me.

The peaked ceiling of the Salvatore drawing room is a dark mahogany, carved ornately. I lose myself in the designs above me.

"Well, looks who is back inside and on the floor," Damon's voice taunts me from the doorway.

I close my eyes, willing my best friend to leave me the hell alone.

"You can't ignore me, little Gilbert, I'm your only friend at the moment," Damon says as he sits on the hard wood floor beside me.

I rub the palms of my hands into my eye sockets, erasing that aching itch deep inside my brain.

"I can't help you with the traveler witches, Damon. You and the gang are alone in this, I have no value to add to the group," I sigh loudly.

Travelers, a band of blood occult witches, have taken over Mystic Falls. They want to suck the doppelgänger power out from Stefan and Elena.

Damon killed their leader Markos, and then the group performed a sacrifice to drag him back from the other side.

"This is urgent," the change in his tone made me sit up and look at him.

"Who died?" The question was rancid on my tongue and stung the air.

Damon takes a deep breath,

"Stefan."

It's like being punched in the stomach.

Stefan.

Not Stefan.

Not this brilliant, kind soul. Someone I still love with so much of me.

"What's the plan?" I ask the next question. And while my face doesn't change, I hear the break in my own voice.

"We are going to blow up the Mystic Grill, sacrificing all the travelers once we get them inside. Bonnie knows the spell to open the other side after that big of a sacrifice, and Stefan and others will be able to come back," Damon explains quickly.

"Who is going to blow up the Mystic Grill?" My eyes narrow at Damon.

Damon sighs and looks at me guiltily,

"Listen.. I wanted to spare you the gory details, and then I figured, well, I'll be lying, and then the whole point of saving the universe would be moot because you'd be pissed. So here it is; Project Kaboom needs someone to trigger the explosion, so-to-speak."

I let myself feel nothing, I blink at him,

"So...you?"

Damon nods and stands up,

"I just wanted to let you know what was going on."

"Who killed Stefan?" I ask, murder in my voice.

"Enzo," Damon replies.

That little British bitch. I'll kill him myself.

Stefan needs to come back though. I need to help.

I stand up as well, cracking my knuckles.

"Okay, I'm doing it then," I tell Damon.

He shakes his head immediately, and before he can verbally protest I hold a hand up.

"No, this is my choice. If we are all coming back anyways, let me do this for you. Let me help, I've been nothing but extra weight all this time. I can't stand the thought of you dying either. I can't loose anyone else. Elena can't lose you too. You're more help to this town alive than I am."

Damon goes quiet and thinks over my words.

"You said you were going to blow up the Mystic Grill? How?" I ask him.

"By driving my car into it, Donovan turned the gas on high about twenty minutes ago," Damon explains.

I nod in thought and then grab his face in my hands,

"Don't you dare hate me for this, Salvatore."

Before he can say another word, I snap his neck. Knocking him out temporarily. Snagging his cell phone from his back pocket, I lay him down on the couch comfortably.

I vampire speed to the front of the house and into my own car, starting it up and peeling out of the drive way.

A text buzzes his phone from Sheriff Liz,

"Go now, they are here."

My foot presses down harder, accelerating through town. The Grill comes into view, and I grip the steering wheel tight as I crash into the building.

Moments later my entire life goes up in flames.

May we meet again.