Fate or Destiny ⌁ TVD [1] ✓

{30} Fading In and Out

***

Everything was a complete blur to me. I had ended up passing out after hearing Stefan screaming. I was completely disoriented and I barely knew what was going on. I knew that I had been kidnapped, again, by the tomb vampires, but I couldn't remember everything that well. I could feel myself slowly waking up when I felt hands cupping my face. "-Arlotte... ey..," I was slowly starting to make sense of the words being said to me, "Charlotte. Hey! Wake up, come on." The voice was Damon so I'm assuming he had come to save us. I let out a groan of pain as the vervain burned my skin.

I could feel hands tugging at the ropes and I heard wincing every once in awhile. I slowly opened my eyes to see Damon trying to get vervain ropes off of me. I slowly shook my head, "No. Stop."

Damon looked at me, "No, Charlotte. I'm getting you out of here."

I took in a deep breath as the vervain touched my skin, "You're hurting yourself. Don't hurt yourself to save me, Damon." My speech was slightly slurred seeing as I was still disoriented from waking up. It was very slowly turning back to normal and it was a little easier to make out what I was saying.

Damon stopped for a second and he had a serious look on his face, "It doesn't matter to me. I will do anything I have to, to save you," He had went back to the vervain ropes and he had succeeded in taking the ropes off. He had picked me up bridal style, "Come on, Little Flame. Let's get you and Stefan out of here."

***

I had ended up going unconscious again as we tried to find Stefan. I was physically exhausted and the vervain was still in my system. When I had come to, I slowly opened my eyes to see that Elena had now joined us. We had found Stefan from the looks of it. I lightly hit Damon on the shoulder and told him to let me down. He didn't want to at first, but he finally did so after I told him I was fine. He didn't look like he believed it, but he just dropped it. I was still a little wobbly so I was holding onto Damon's shoulder for support and he had his arm wrapped around my waist.

Damon was starting to walk out of the basement and he asked Elena, "Can you get them in the car?"

Elena seemed to think about it before responding, "Yeah."

"All right, go," Damon told us. He looked out of a window and slowly passed me off to Elena who was now holding up both Stefan and me. I stared at him with a stubborn look. I wasn't just going to leave him here to deal with this by himself.

"What about you?" Elena inquired.

"You rescue, I'll distract. Go." Damon stated.

I shook my head, "No." Damon looked back over at me for a second before sighing. He walked over to me until he was finally standing in front of me. Elena was watching us with curious eyes. She was obviously wanting to know what Damon was going to do next.

Damon looked down at me with a stern look, "Charlotte, you have to go," I went to say something, but he cut me off before I could. "You can barely walk around on your own. You aren't exactly going to be a lot of help in a fight," I, again, went to say something. I was, again, cut off, "Please," Damon had a pleading look on his face. I thought it over for a second. He was right, I could barely stand much less fight. I nodded and he sighed in what seemed like relief. He kissed the top of my head, "Thank you." He went off to distract the vampires and Elena dragged us away.

***

We were walking through the woods as we tried to make it to the car. It felt like I was fading in and out at some moments. The air was cold and felt like it could cut me in two. The blood on my shirt was still wet which made me even colder than I would normally be. I tried my best to keep the pace, but it was a lot of trouble. Stefan grunted in pain and Elena asked us, "Can you make it?" Elena couldn't hold us anymore and the three of us ended up falling to the ground. I could smell blood and that was the only thing that I could remember before I passed out again.

***

I gasped as I shot up in my bed. Wait... My bed? I looked around to see that I was in my room at the Salvatore Boarding House. I stared at my surroundings in confusion. I wasn't passed out for that long, was I? I was thinking that I might've been unconscious for five minutes, but it was clearly longer than that. The vervain was out of my system by now so I didn't feel as weak as I did before. I still, sadly, had a pounding headache.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the door opening. I turned to see Damon walking over to me with a worried expression. He sat down on the bed and looked at me, "Are you okay?"

"Other than the splitting headache, I'm fine," I laughed a little then winced at the pain. I stared at Damon with a look of interest. I then decided to ask the question that had been on my mind for awhile, "Why did you do it?"

Damon looked confused, "Do what?"

"The ropes were covered in vervain," I started to explain. "You could've just waited until we got to Elena so she could take them off... But you didn't. Why?"

"Because," He trailed off and I urged him to continue, "You were in a lot of pain, Charlotte. I just... Couldn't stand to see that pained expression on your face," He looked genuinely worried for me. He seemed to realize what he was doing and then his usual smirk came back on his face, "You know, you seem to be a magnet for kidnapping. This has to be the... Sixth time you've been kidnapped."

I grabbed a pillow from beside me and hit him with it, "It has not been six times."

He continued to smirk at me before his look faded into the worried one before, "You need to be more careful, Little Flame. One of these times, you could end up a lot worse than just kidnapped." I knew where he was getting at and I didn't want to think about it. Death was something that scared me. No matter how long I've lived, it still seemed to scare the living hell out of me.

I put a smile on my face so he wouldn't be able to read my expression, "You and I both know that you can't get rid of me that easily."