Book: Gilbert Twins
Chapter 21: She's Come Undone
Word Count: 5001
In Ariana's head
Ariana's POV (FINALLY!!!)
I arrived at school and walked among a crowd of high school students outside, when suddenly, Caroline, Elena, Bonnie, and Matt approached me.
"Ari, you're here!" Caroline grinned widely, making me simply give her a blank look, disgusted by her happiness. "I got valedictorian! You can help me write my speech."
"Pass." I replied, giving her a look as I went to walk away.
"Come on, A, lighten up." Elena chuckled. I rolled my eyes at her, annoyed. What part of this conversation was funny to her? If anything, it was really dull. I couldn't even understand how me and Elena were twins, it was pathetic. I wanted all of them to leave me the hell alone ASAP.
"We're graduating this year, this is it!" Caroline exclaimed happily. "We need to soak up every second before--"
I narrowed my eyes at the preppy blonde, frustrated with her unnecessary happiness, and went to walk around the lot of them. Until I halted in my footsteps, looking up at the school.
"Wait. Something's not right. I don't want to be here."
But suddenly, I heard a slight breeze behind me, causing me to spin around and lay my eyes on the determined and stubborn man that is Damon Salvatore. Ugh, why wouldn't these guys just give me a break?!
"What is wrong with you? Don't you wanna be with your friends?" Damon questioned. "Graduation parties, caps, gowns, you know the drill."
I simply rolled my eyes.
"What is this..." I looked around; all of the students in the schoolyard had disappeared. That was when I realised what was happening and where we were. "We're not really here, are we? We're in my head."
"Relax. I just wanted to show you all of the things that you've been missing out on since you took the giant leap over the cuckoo's nest." Damon stated. I carelessly dropped my school bag to the ground, harder than necessary.
"The last thing I remember..."
"Let me guess: Klaus' letter?" Damon guessed. "Beautiful confessions, envious handwriting, you throwing that poor letter it away as if it was just a banana peel to you? It's a good thing I saved that sweet letter. I know you'll be wanting to read it once we, you know, get you back and all."
"You starved me." I realised, my tone growing cold as my eyes hardened and narrowed on my ex-lover.
"Yeah, well, we had to keep you weak so I could bring you here." Damon shrugged nonchalantly, only infuriating me more. "See, the way I figure it is, if I can make you nostalgic, you're already halfway to getting your humanity back."
"It's not gonna work, Damon." I laughed humorlessly. They really come up with the most stupid ways to try and get me to turn it back on.
They won't succeed. I won't let them.
"Well, there are other ways to provoke an emotional response." Damon sighed.
---
Out of Ariana's head
No one's POV
Damon was in the cellar at the boarding house after just leaving Ariana's head. Nathan arrived behind him.
"You still have her locked in the safe? You've been in her head for an hour. What, still nothing?" Nathan questioned. Damon said nothing, but instead approached the safe.
"How you doing in there?" He unlocked the safe and opened the door. Ariana was inside, weak and apparently barely conscious. Damon pulled her out. "Come on." Ariana fell to the ground and Damon crouched down in front of her. "Is the old you ready to come out and play?"
"Go to hell." Ariana snapped. Damon made a face, smiling tightly.
"Okay. Back you go." He put her back into the safe and locked it, talking to her loudly through the heavy door. "We can do this the nice way, or we can do it the other way... but either way, we're not stopping until you turn your humanity switch back on. So I'm gonna let you think about that, and I'm gonna come back for you in a couple hours, or a couple years... because all we have is time."
---
Later in the day, Caroline had arrived to check on Ariana. Stefan had led her down to the basement where the safe is, opened it, and then left to leave the two girls alone.
Caroline looked at the weak Ariana for a few moments, sympathetic and deeply missing her best friend. She withdrew a bottle of blood from her pocket.
"I brought you something. It doesn't have any vervain in it, I swear. I just figured a little blood might help you think straight." Caroline approached Ariana, holding out the bottle. Ariana paused for a moment before seizing the bottle and drinking it desperately. "For the record, I don't agree with what they're doing. I mean, I agree that you need to turn your humanity back on, but I don't think that making you suffer is the way to do it. That's not who you are."
Ariana span the empty bottle on the stone floor as if she was playing spin the bottle.
"What makes you such an expert on who I am?"
"Because we've been friends forever." Caroline pointed out. "We've always been inseparable, Ari. I consider you to be my sister! The sibling that I never had but always wanted! You are my sister, Ari, whether you like it or not."
"I tried to kill you, Caroline." Ariana rolled her eyes. "I'm not exactly BFF-material anymore, let alone sister material. Just ask Elena, I bet she hates me. Not like I care. You should move on." Ariana continued to spin the bottle on the floor until Caroline reached out suddenly and stilled it.
"I am not going to give up on you."
"This annoying, clingy thing that you're doing — did it ever occur to you maybe that's why your boyfriend skipped town?" Ariana taunted. "I mean, I know that Tyler said he was running for his life, but maybe he was running from you."
Caroline tried to keep it together.
"You're in pain, you're lashing out, I get it. But you can't stay this way forever. We're about to graduate, and start new lives! And you deserve--"
"Are you seriously talking about high school graduation?" Ariana scoffed in disbelief. "Caroline, do you realize how pathetic you're gonna look in that cap and gown, pretending to be human while your mom fake-smiles and just counts down the minutes until you leave town so that you can stop being a reminder that her daughter is a repulsive, blood-sucking control freak monster?" Caroline, losing her patience, stood up and turned away. "It's really too bad Nathan and Damon stopped me before I put you out of your misery, but hey, here's to second chances."
Ariana vamp-sped over to Caroline to attack her. Caroline managed to hold Ariana off, with a little difficulty, while Ariana growled, teeth bared.
"Ariana!!" Caroline stopped, but Ariana continued to try and attack Caroline, until the blonde vampire snapped the doppelgänger's neck. Ariana fell to the floor. Stefan returned, standing behind Caroline. She turned to look at him. "Do whatever you have to do. I'm gonna be upstairs."
Caroline walked past Stefan and left.
---
Damon noisily set down a fire extinguisher and Ariana was startled awake, groggily finding herself strapped down in a chair on the main level of the house beside a closed curtain. She looked around; Stefan was strolling around the dimly-lit room, Damon was crouched in front of her, Nathan was leaning against the wall opposite her, and Elena was sat quietly in a chair in a corner of the room.
"Good, you're awake. Thought you could use a little sunshine." Damon smirked.
Stefan pulled the curtain back a little, allowing a ray of light to creep closer to Ariana. She looked down at her hand.
"Looking for this?" Nathan held up her daylight ring, still leaning (quite nonchalantly) against the wall. Ariana glared angrily at her first love. Stefan let go of the curtain, shutting out the sun again.
"You took my ring." Ariana spoke impassively. "I'm devastated. And bored. Can I go back to solitary now?"
"No. I kinda like you in the hot seat." Damon replied with a small smirk. Nathan quickly glanced at a quiet Elena, who was looking down at her lap and fiddling anxiously with her fingers. Nathan sighed, hating that his girlfriend had to watch them torture her twin sister.
"You can leave the room at any time, Lena..."
"I know." Elena sighed. "But if this is the day that my sister turns it back on, I want to be there for it..."
Nodding hesitantly, Nathan slowly looked over to Stefan.
"Whenever you're ready, brother."
Stefan reached for the curtain again.
"Am I supposed to be scared?" Ariana laughed, but no form of humour was apparent on her pale face.
"You will be. And when you are, focus on that fear. It's the key to getting your humanity back." Stefan responded.
"You're not gonna burn me. All of you love me too much." Ariana told them. She turned to Nathan first. "I was your first love. You never loved Madeline as much as you loved me, making me your first true love." She then turned to Stefan. "I am your best friend, and the only link that you have to Lexi since it is extremely obvious that I remind you of her." Ariana then turned to Damon. "I am your current epic love, and I always will be to you." And lastly, she turned to Elena. "And you? I'm your twin sister, your best friend, and your other half that you'd never dream of intentionally hurting." Ariana chuckled darkly. "You'd all never hurt me."
"You don't think so?" Damon muttered after processing Ariana's words carefully.
"No. And even if you do manage to get my emotions back, I'll remember all this, and I'll hate all of you for it." Ariana pointed out.
"Tsk. Worth the risk." Damon simply shrugged. Stefan pulled the curtain wide and the sunlight started to burn Ariana's hand. She yelled in pain, struggling in her chair. Her arm ignited into flames for a few seconds before Damon put it out with the fire extinguisher and Stefan let go of the curtain. "Bet that feels better, huh? How about a little gratitude, or any human emotion whatsoever, and we can stop this?"
"I'm... I... I can't watch this..." Elena, after witnessing her sister almost get burned alive, quickly stood up from her chair and sped out of the room.
Ariana was right... she was Elena's other half, and she hated the sight of Ariana getting hurt while she couldn't do anything about it...
"I'll... go see if she's alright..." Nathan also sped out of the room after Elena.
"Anyway..." Damon sighed, turning back to the brown/blue haired vampire strapped in the chair. Ariana, still gasping and straining against her bonds, mumbled something. "I didn't quite catch that."
"I said, I'm gonna kill you." Ariana growled.
"Bingo! See? There's a little rage. I should've figured that'd be the first emotion that came out of you. I tend to pull that out of people." Damon stated. Stefan then crouched down in front of his best friend.
"Ana, look at me. We don't wanna do this, okay? You can stop this right now. It's your choice."
Ariana laughed.
"You think this actually has any effect on me? All you're doing is making me even hotter than I already am." She made an ironic joke, but still held no sense of humor in her cold, hazel eyes. "You're getting weak, Stefan. This is killing you, isn't it? All you'd do is protect me, even if your life depended on it, because you don't want to lose me, your little Lexi replacement. You know, since you lost the original version and all."
Damon crouched next to Stefan in front of her.
"Wow. That was downright vindictive meaning. See? I think now we're breaking through that tough candy shell and getting into the ooey-gooey rich center of your humanity. This is good. I think we should shine some light on the subject."
Stefan got up and went to the curtain.
"Let me guess... this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me?" Ariana rolled her eyes, genuinely looking bored out of her mind.
"Look, I know what you're going through. After all you've done, you're afraid to face the guilt you'll feel if you turn your emotions back on. It's a huge relief that during this loss of your emotions, you haven't killed anybody." Stefan mentioned. "Only way we can help you is to make the alternative hurt even worse."
Ariana laughed at him softly and closed her eyes. Stefan wrenched back the curtain; Ariana's face started to burn and she screamed in pain.
---
Ariana was still shouting in pain from the sun burning her skin. Stefan left the curtain open for a few seconds longer, then closed them. Ariana gasped in relief as her wounds healed.
"You're gonna thank me for this. After you turn it back on, you'll realize life with no emotions blew." Damon spoke.
"You know what else blew? Being sired to you... going every day believing that I was in love with you. I remember every horrible moment of it, and you, so scared that it wasn't real. Well, guess what... it wasn't. You were right. So go ahead, keep trying to get the old me back. Who knows? Maybe, since Elena dumped Stefan's poor ass, me and him will give it a go."
The brothers took that in for a moment, brushing off her cruelty with indulgent though perhaps hurt expressions.
"Any luck yet?" Nathan asked, entering the room hand in hand with a slightly reluctant Elena.
"Not y--"
But before Stefan could finish, Ariana broke free of the bonds on her wrists, and vamp-sped toward the window.
"NO!" Elena screamed, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.
Paying her twin sister no attention at all, Ariana pulled one of the curtains off the rod, exposing her to the sunlight. She immediately burst into flames and started screaming.
Damon grabbed the fire extinguisher and put her out while Stefan patted her down frantically. Elena stood nearby, trying to calm her racing heart down, as she clutched onto Nathan's hand tightly.
Ariana lay on the floor, coughing and laughing while her skin healed.
"I am the girl that all four of you love, all in your own different ways. You wouldn't do anything to actually hurt me. You just proved that. So, what do I really have to be afraid of?"
---
Madeline opened the door to the safe in the cell to reveal Ariana sitting in it.
"Oh, honey, you look awful." She pulled Ariana roughly out of the safe. Ariana was still weak and merely fell out onto the floor.
"What the hell are you doing here?" She murmured.
"Your boyfriend invited me. Damon wants to know if you still have a heart." Madeline then grabbed Ariana, pushed her up against the wall, and plunged her hand into Ariana's chest, grabbing her heart. "There it is. Your bodyguards won't let me kill you, but I can rip your throat out so I don't have to listen to you whine." Madeline steadily lifted Ariana up with her hand in her chest until she released her and Ariana's feet touched the ground again. "But first, satisfy my curiosity: what did you tell Elijah back in Willoughby?" That simply made Ariana laugh darkly.
"We are similar, you and I, Madeline. We both turned it off as soon as we lost someone who meant something to us. You flipped the switch because you had to flee, leaving your transitioning lovers behind. And me? Well, you and your unpleasant sister killed my brother. We have that in common, I suppose." Ariana explained. "But, then again, our differences? You don't turn it back on because you are terrified that the thousands of people that you have carelessly deceived, manipulated, abused, and killed over this past century will haunt you for the rest of your miserable life. Me, on the other hand... I won't turn it on because I simply don't care anymore. Why bother turning it back on when it won't change anything. I'm fine the way I am."
Now getting angry that her younger doppelgänger was humiliating her, Madeline roughly grabbed Ariana.
"Tell me what you said to turn Elijah against me, or I will feed you your own eyeballs!"
"I didn't have to say anything." Ariana shrugged nonchalantly. "Look at you: self-obsessed, emotionless, egomaniac on the run for five centuries with your manipulative wench of a sister. What good would you be to anyone? You're the definition of damaged goods. No wonder Elijah left you."
"Yeah, I've done some pretty horrible things to survive." Madeline pinned Ariana to the wall by her throat. "And yes, we do have our flipped humanity switch in common, but I've learnt to deal with what a monster I've become, making it that much more easy to keep my switch flipped all this time. And you were wrong before. You won't turn it off because you are scared of admitting what a monster you've become. You wouldn't last a week as a vampire without everyone fawning over you." Madeline shoved Ariana into the safe and locked it, but paused with her hand resting on the lock. "But I'd love to see you try."
Madeline suddenly unlocked the safe, and then left Ariana in the unlocked safe, allowing her to escape whenever she pleased.
---
Ariana shuffled weakly through the woods until she heard a rustling behind her, causing her to turn around, only to see none other than Elena stood there.
"Dear sister. I was hoping you were a human, but luck just clearly isn't in my favour today." Ariana sighed. "Did you at least bring some blood with you? Or do you think Matt's up for a bite?"
"You're not going to hurt Matt, Ariana." Elena spoke firmly. She wrapped a hand tightly around Ariana's wrist. "I'm bringing you back to the safe, come on."
"Don't make me angry, Elena." Ariana rolled her eyes. "We both know that nobody wins once I get angry. Except me, of course. But you, however... let's just call you collateral damage, hm?"
"What--?" But before Elena could finish speaking, Ariana vamp-sped over to her and plunged her hand deep into her twin's chest, grasping Elena's heart in her hand.
"It's a shame that you won't be able to live your young, immortal life with Nathan." Ariana taunted, slowly twisting her hand, making Elena gasp in pain. "It's a shame that you were the worst sister a person could have. All I am doing is putting you out of your misery. Sshhh... hey, shh... you'll be with our family now. Please do tell them that I am better off without every single one of them. Mom, dad, John, Isobel, Jenna, Alaric, Jeremy... you. I will be so much better off without you, Elena Gilbert."
"Please..." Elena pleaded quietly, gasping again as she felt her life slipping away from her as Ariana literally tugged at her heart, threatening to yank it right out of her chest. "P-please don't..."
"You're pathetic. Weak." Ariana laughed. "I'm doing the whole world a favour, don't you worry."
But moments before Ariana could kill the only family that she had left... moments before Ariana could commit her first murder ever... she was yanked roughly away from Elena by Stefan.
"Hey, hey, knock it off!" He yelled at the emotionless vampire, pinning her against a tree.
"Let go of me!" Ariana struggled against his grip, trying to get back to kill Elena, who was now being comforted and held by Nathan, who was deeply concerned for his girlfriend after her near death experience.
"Stop it!" Stefan kept her pinned to the tree, ignoring her attempts to get free. Damon then arrived and knelt down beside Nathan and Elena.
"Allow me, brother." Damon murmured to Nathan, gesturing to Elena. Nathan reluctantly nodded and let go of his girlfriend, allowing Damon to pull Elena up from the ground. He then looked at Ariana, keeping Elena locked tightly in his grasp. "Enough! You are acting like a little spoiled brat, you know that? You think that we can't punish you. Maybe not. But I can sure punish her." Damon gestured to Elena in his arms.
"A..." Elena whispered, breathing heavily from having her heart almost torn out.
"Seriously?" Ariana simply rolled her eyes. "You think this--"
"Shut up!" Damon cut her off. "I'm done playing nice. Turn your emotions back on right now, Ariana, or so help me god, I will give you something to be sad about. I will kill the only family you have left right here in front of you." He held up a wooden stake threateningly.
"Damon!" Stefan warned, still with Ariana held up against the tree.
"I swear to god, if you kill Elena--" Nathan growled, but Damon cut him off.
"Don't threaten me! She doesn't love anyone? Fine. Prove it. And if I'm wrong, what difference does it make? One less doppelgänger!"
"A..." Elena repeated quietly, more pleadingly, her breathing now going at a normal pace.
Ariana and Damon stared each other down, when Ariana suddenly let out a dark, amused laugh.
"You're bluffing!"
But suddenly, Damon drove the stake right into Elena's chest, through her heart.
"NO!" Nathan screamed out. Elena let out a whimper, sinking to the floor as her skin almost immediately turned grey and was covered in dark veins.
All amusement vanished from Ariana's face in a split second. Tears flooded her eyes as a loud gasp was the only sound that came from her.
It was if she could feel, and hear, a loud switch flipping in the back of her mind, causing all of these emotions to hit her all at once like a ton of bricks. The force of the emotions rushing towards her caused Ariana to physically jump slightly.
Grief... regret... misery... anger... guilt... remorse...
All of that damn grief...
"No! No, no, no..." Ariana shoved Stefan away from her, kneeling down beside Elena's body and bringing the dead girl's head up to rest on her lap, stroking Elena's brown locks. "No. No, no... oh god, I am so sorry! I am so, so sorry... this is all my fault! No..."
Damon knelt down beside her, staring at Ariana's damp face from the tears that kept falling.
"You feel anything now? You angry I just turned your twin sister into roadkill? Or are you sad that the girl that everybody loves is just a bag of bones? I guess it was a good thing that she's not dead."
That surprised everyone. But Ariana wouldn't believe it. She turned to glare furiously at Damon.
"What game are you playing?! M-my sister is dead! My only family is dead, and you're trying to give me false hope?! You are a monster, Damon Salvatore!"
Trying to conceal how hurt he felt at Ariana's statement, Damon rose to her feet and stared down at the damaged girl.
"We got Bonnie on board. She agreed to perform a spell that would desiccate Elena. The same one that we tried to do to Alaric when he was all psycho killer. And as you need to stop a heart to desiccate someone, Bonnie is off somewhere, stopping Matt's poor busboy heart temporarily. Your sister's alive, Ariana... she'll wake up very soon..."
As relief flooded her whole entire body, Ariana began to sob from all of the relief and the rest of her new-found emotions all mixed together.
"You're gonna be okay." Damon reassured softly.
"No..." Ariana cried.
"Look at me." Damon instructed.
"No, no, no. It's not okay." Ariana began to sob even harder, gripping Elena's hand tightly as she waited for her sister to wake up.
"Ana..." Damon whispered. As Nathan sat beside Elena and held her hand worriedly, Ariana scrambled to her feet.
"What have I done...?"
"Hey, it's okay." Damon murmured. Ariana was pacing, trying to stop her hands from shaking as much as they were.
"No, no. What did I do? I-I almost killed her... Elena, my own sister, I almost... and Matt, and Caroline, I just--" Damon tried to put an arm around her but she pushed him away. "No, no, I mean, I tried to kill my only family... and
M-Madeline was right all along... I-I just didn't want to admit it... god, I'm a freaking monster!!" Stefan moved toward her but she resisted. "No, stay away from me! I don't want to hurt you! Th-that's what monsters do, isn't it?!"
Ariana punched a tree angrily, creating a large dent in the trunk of the tree from her enhanced strength. While Nathan stayed knelt beside Elena, Stefan and Damon tried to restrain Ariana.
"Hey, hey, look at me, look at me." Stefan spoke to his best friend. "I know this stage, okay? The emotions are overwhelming you. You just have to focus on one thing, okay?"
"No, I can't, I can't!" Ariana whimpered in emotional pain.
"You just find that one thing inside of you that makes you strong." Stefan muttered gently to her. "It's in there, just latch onto it. Channel everything you're feeling into that one emotion. Find the thing inside of you that makes you wanna live. Ana, let it in. Let it in." So, Ariana calmed down and stopped sobbing. She seemed to find a focus. "That's good. That's it. That's it, just breathe it in. Blow everything else out. That's good, that's good..."
Damon reached a hand toward her.
"You okay...?" He smiled tightly. Ariana slowly raised her head to look at him, her face practically sparkling from how wet her tears had made her pale face.
"I... I'm so sorry, Damon..." She said. "I had no right to call you a... monster when it's me who I should've said that to. I'm the monster, and all you did was bring me back, and... and I am so... grateful."
"You are not a monster, Ana." Damon told her softly.
"Yes I am. And that's okay." Ariana shot him a small, pain-filled smile. "It'll only make me stronger."
"That's the girl I know and love." Damon smirked. That was when Ariana realised just how much she'd missed that smirk.
Not being able to restrain herself, Ariana threw herself into Damon's arms, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder, breathing in his comforting scent that she'd missed so much.
Damon hugged her back just as tightly, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her close to him, slowly raising one of his hands to reach up and stroke Ariana's brown and blue hair soothingly. He'd missed her, too... more than he'd ever admit aloud...
---
Ariana sat near the fire when Damon approached and wrapped a blanket around her.
"Hey. Here you go. How you feeling?"
"The pain's still there... the grief and the shame. But I get it now." Ariana replied. "Shutting it off? It's a cheat. I mean, you put up this wall and shut out everything that makes you who you are. Nothing affects you, nothing matters. But things do matter, things that happen that can't be undone. And now I know that there's something I need to do about that."
"Ana..." Stefan spoke up from the corner of the room. "What you need to do is rest. Take it easy for a couple of days. Maybe even a couple of years."
"Here." Nathan offered her a glass of whiskey, but she ignored it and started folding up the blanket.
"I... I'm done resting. I have to get ready. There's so much that I have to do." She started to get up but Damon put a hand out to stop her.
"Whoa, hey. What are you talking about?"
"Think about it." Ariana sighed. "It's so obvious. Go back far enough, there's two people who brought us to this, who ruined our lives. Look at you three. Everything that's happened to you, they did that! They're the reason we couldn't get the cures, they turned Caroline into a vampire, they killed my brother! It all comes down to them. Katherine and Madeline. Okay? Stefan said to focus on one thing, so I did. I focused on hate. And I hate them so much!"
"I don't think that's what he meant..." Damon said.
"Ana, Katherine and Madeline are not worth your time. Even if you spend ten minutes of your life hating them, they win." Stefan stated.
"Not if I kill her." Ariana shot back, her eyes holding nothing but anger, hate, and pure determination.
"Need any help?" A sudden voice made Ariana freeze. She slowly turned around to see Elena stood there, alive and awake.
"E..."
"So, are we killing the psychotic duo or not?" Elena smiled softly at her twin.
"E!" Ariana repeated, louder this time, and sped over to Elena, engulfing her into a tight hug. "You're alive... you're really okay..."
"You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?" Elena chuckled, returning the tight embrace.
Both sisters felt whole again in that moment. They'd missed eachother the most...
---
Please don't forget to leave your opinions, tips/advice and all that stuff in the comments, I'll definitely take tips and advice into consideration!
Damiana? Stariana? Klariana? Others?
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Love you guys!
-L
Next chapter: As graduation approaches, Caroline tries to distract Ariana by focusing on simple tasks, while Nathan does the same with Elena someplace else, but the Gilbert twins won't be swayed from their new obsession.