Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

111. Mother Figures*

Stefan crossed his arms. "We get Julian's blood. Then Nora, Beau or Mary Louise use it to unlink him from Lily. Then we kill the bastard."

"Uh, you glossed over the important bit," Enzo noted with a slight air of sarcasm. "Do you really think that Beau, Mary Louise or Nora are going to help?"

"Lily's pet puppy makes a good point," Riley said, smirking at him. "None of them are gonna want to go against Julian."

"I know," Stefan answered, already anticipating this. He knew that there was nothing the four of them could do to change the Heretics' minds about Julian. "The only way we're gonna be able to pull this off is to deploy the nuclear option."

"Which is?" Enzo asked, scoffing.

"Me," a voice said. They all turned towards the door to see Valerie standing there. She caught Riley's eye. "I'm gonna tell them the truth."

Enzo scoffed again, looking Valerie up and down. "And the truth is...?"

Riley rolled her eyes. "None of your business! Why don't you go and make sure that Lily keeps our secret - she doesn't exactly seem like the 'stealthy' type."

After a moment of looking around and realizing that no one was going to tell him anything, Enzo took Riley's advice, playfully punching her arm as he left.

With that, they planned out their next steps in intricate detail, making sure that they all knew what their roles were, and where they'd be when everything went down. Then Valerie and Stefan went to get ready, leaving Riley and Damon alone in the living room of the Lockwood mansion, where they were staying when they weren't at Whitmore house.

"You realize that staking Lily is the easiest option, right?" Damon asked, only half-joking. Riley sighed, leaning back on the sofa.

"You can pretend all you want that you have a heart of stone, but we both know that you're not gonna let your mom die," she told him. He shrugged nonchalantly and she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Seriously? You're willing to let Lily die?"

"Look, Fletch, I didn't have the most amazing childhood, okay?" Damon said irritably, thinking about all the things that he'd spent the last century trying to forget. Riley's face softened as she watched his expressions change.

"I'm not saying you have to forgive her," she said gently. "But if you're gonna punish her for what she did all those years ago, then you have to acknowledge that she might not be that person anymore." He looked at her in confusion, unwilling to see Lily as anything other than the woman that left them. "Look at you and Stefan - you aren't the same people you were back then."

"Lily abandoned us for her new family," Damon reminded Riley sharply. "She was a bad mother when she was alive, and she's a bad mother in death."

He stood up to leave, and Riley joined him on her feet, looking at him with worry in her eyes.

"Damon, forgiving your mom isn't a sign of weakness," she told him firmly. "And if you never want to, I completely understand. Just... don't confuse yourself for the human boy that Lily left behind. Because that's not you anymore, okay?"

After a moment of hesitation, Damon nodded, deep in thought.

"I love you," Riley said simply, reminding him that she was there for him, no matter how he felt about his mom.

He smiled in response and kissed her tenderly, just as the door opened and Stefan came back into the room, a look of determination on his face.

"Lily just texted me their location, let's do this!"

They followed him to the front door. However, when he opened the front door, Caroline was standing on the other side, shocking them into silence.

"Oh, hi," Stefan said, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "I, uh, thought you were studying?"