Elena ran up to meet the trio once Damon parked the car.
"Where is Caroline?" Stefan grilled her.
"Inside looking for Bonnie," Elena told him, "I think we should split up. Damon, Emma, and I can look outside while you and Caroline look inside."
Stefan nodded, "Let me know if you find anything."
Stefan ran into the school to meet up with Caroline.
Elena began walking quickly, Damon noticed her rush, "Someone's an eager beaver."
Elena suddenly stepped in front of Damon to force him to stop walking.
"Where is Katherine?" She demanded an answer from him.
"Now I get it," Damon put his hands on his hips and looked at Elena like she was crazy, "one brother shoots you down, so you ask the other."
"Now is not the time Elena," Emma started to pull Damon along to continue the search.
Elena ran to keep up with them, "You know, don't you?"
"Do you not notice all of the end-of-the-world crap going on right now?" Damon kept walking quickly.
"Tell me that you don't want her dead. After everything that she did to you? Stringing you along for hundreds of years?" Elena tried to hit a nerve with Damon.
Damon shook his head, "Elena, we don't need to list all the reasons that I hate Katherine. What we need to do is find Bonnie. Come on."
Elena blocked his path again, "I don't care about Bonnie, I care about killing Katherine."
"They're together, okay? So maybe you should do a little less threatening and a little more looking," Damon glared at Elena before he started walking again, this time he pulled Emma along.
"We need to check the second floor," Emma told him as she led them to a back entrance.
Damon called Stefan on his phone to get an update. Caroline and Stefan had found something down in the kitchens, but they were trying to find a way to get lower.
"If I remember correctly, there's an entrance to the basement," Damon informed his brother, "somewhere off the boiler room."
Damon hung up and looked at Elena.
"What?" She demanded an update.
Damon shook his head, "You're gonna have to stay here."
"Are you kidding me?" Elena challenged him.
Damon was loosing his patience "We really need to stop Bonnie from doing the spell, she is going to kill Emma, and if you get all murderous and screw it up-"
"Is that really the reason?" Elena stood her ground.
"As self-righteous as Stefan is, he has a point. Behind your rage, there is a tidal wave of feelings, all of your guilt, all your grief, every emotion you've ever put off, and killing Katherine's gonna let it all in. And if you can't handle it, then we're back to square one, and this time it's gonna attract hunters," Damon tried to explain.
Elena shook her head to disagree, "And if I can? What if killing Katherine takes away all that grief and guilt? What if killing Katherine finally lets me feel all the good things that I've lost? Damon, help me. As soon as I get over this hurdle, I'll be me. I'll be able to think clearly, I'll be myself, and everything will go back to normal."
"What normal?" Emma cut in, Emma suddenly gripped her chest and fell to her knees, "Bonnie is doing something."
Damon knelt down next to Emma, pulling her into his arms as she struggled to breathe, he looked up at Elena reluctantly, "She's strong, and crafty, and you'll die."
Elena suddenly took out a stake and jabbed it into Damon's side, "At least I'll die trying."
Damon grunted and fell to the floor, dragging a gasping Emma along with him. Elena ran from the scene to find Katherine.
Emma sat up as whatever Bonnie was doing subsided, all of her senses on high alert. She turned to Damon who was groaning in pain and trying to reach for the stake in his side.
"Need a hand?" A very familiar voice asked.
Emma watched with wide eyes as Alaric bent down and pulled the stake from Damon's side. Damon let out a breath of relief before sitting up.
"This is either really good or really bad," Damon looked at Alaric with a lot of caution.
"It's good to see you too Damon," Alaric let out a soft laugh before looking up at Emma, "hey Em."
Emma was still in silent shock and unable to speak, she looked at him like she couldn't tell if she was dead or he was, "Did Bonnie kill me?"
"No," Alaric assured her.
"I'd say it's good to see you, except a lot of people aren't exactly who they say they are around here," Damon looked at Alaric with suspicion.
Alaric looked offended, "You think I'm Silas? Are you kidding me?"
Damon pushed Emma behind him slightly, Alaric looked amused.
"See, now this puts us in a bit of a pickle, because that is exactly what Silas would say," Damon started to stand, pulling Emma up with him while making sure he blocked Alaric's way to her.
"Good to see you kept your promise of protecting Emma, at least, as well as you could with no memory of her," Alaric stepped over to a locker, opened it and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, "but would Silas know about locker forty-two?"
Damon grinned widely and embraced Alaric in a tight hug, both of them laughed. Emma still looked reluctant to believe what she was seeing. Alaric pushed Damon off of him and held out a hand to Emma, she shook her head and took a step back.
"Em, it's really me," Alaric took a step towards her, but dropped his hand, "before Katie moved out to go to college, you hid every single thing in her room so she couldn't pack it, but you hid them at my house in my kitchen cabinets. You used your key, which had a skull on top, to get in. There is no way Silas knows what that key looked like, because you lost it and everything else in your backpack on a white water rafting trip two months later."
Emma's defensive stature softened and Alaric took his chance to pull her into his arms and wrap her in a bear hug. Damon could hear Emma's soft sobs as she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him back.
"Uh, hang on. If I can see you," Damon patted Alaric's arm "and I can touch you, that means the little witch did it. She dropped the veil."
"Well, not completely. It's only down inside the Expression triangle. If I step outside of it, it's back to ghost world," Alaric finally let go of Emma.
"Where is everybody? I figured with the veil down, it'd be like ghost-a-palooza," Damon looked around.
"Well, not every ghost has a reason to come back to Mystic Falls. Just the ones like me, looking after their idiot best friends," Alaric smiled.
Damon crossed his arms, "I'm more worried about the ones looking out for their enemies."
"Of which, you have plenty," Alaric said sarcastically.
"Exactly, I'm actually surprised you aren't one of them," Damon eyed Alaric.
Alaric shook his head, "What happened with your memory wasn't your fault. It still sucks that Emma had to see you be such a dick though."
Damon rolled his eyes, "Yeah, that angel is one more person on my kill list, trust me."
"We need to get down to the basement," Emma pulled at Damon's hand.
The trio headed down the steps to the first floor and ran to the boiler room. Damon's phone started ringing, he answered it on speaker.
"I'm a little busy bus boy," Damon greeted Matt.
Matt ignored him and got straight to the point, "That's not Caroline with you, it's Silas. Rebekah and I found Caroline in the back room of the Grill hallucinating."
"Perfect," Damon sighed.
"Yeah, it gets worse. The veil's down; Kol came by looking for Elena, and he seemed a little pissed," Matt informed them.
Damon rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, "You got any good news for me Donovan?"
"We'll handle this, just watch your back," Matt hung up the phone.
"Call Stefan and tell him about Caroline. Tell him to keep an eye on Elena. God knows he'll do a better job than me," Damon put his phone in his pocket.
Emma pulled Damon towards the entrance to the basement, where they could get to the tunnels beneath the city.
"Bonnie!" Emma called out, hoping that they would get an answer, "Bonnie!"
They continued their way through the twisting tunnel, cavern after cavern was empty. Suddenly Alaric appeared in front of them.
"It's just me. I called Stefan, he is heading for Elena. Did you find Silas?" Alaric asked.
Damon's eyes narrowed and he pushed Emma to the side, "Yep."
Damon brought his flashlight up and slammed the back of it into Alaric's head, knocking him to the ground. Beside him Damon found a chain, he wrapped it around Alaric's neck and started to strangle him. Emma watched in horror, she knew the same thing that Damon did, but it was still hard to see.
"Damon, it's me!" Alaric yelled.
"No, you're not. I've spent more time in these tunnels then I care to admit, and there's no way you just came from the school," Damon revealed how Silas had failed at his deception, "your mind games don't work on me, Silas."
Bonnie suddenly entered the cavern they were in, "I may not be able to kill you, but I will stop you."
Bonnie closed her eyes and began to concentrate as she raised her hand up towards Silas. At the same time Emma grasped her chest and let out a sharp scream before falling to the ground.
"Bonnie stop!" Damon begged her.
Bonnie kept on looking at Silas, "I will make the blood clot in your veins. I will make every bone, muscle and joint in your body turn to stone. You won't have power over us anymore."
"Bonnie, you're killing Emma!" Damon continued to struggle with Silas, he was unable to run to Emma's side and his cries for Bonnie to stop fell on deaf ears.
Silas turned away from Damon and began groaning in pain as his body hardened from the inside out. His face began morphing. Silas moved his hands so they were covering his face.
"He can't hide behind his mind-control anymore. He's becoming his true self," Bonnie explained.
Silas finally hardened completely, with his hands covering his face. Damon let go of him and ran over to Emma, who was gasping for air.
"Who exactly might his true self be?" Damon asked her.
Bonnie shrugged as she completed her spell, "I guess we'll never know."
Emma was finally able to catch her breath, "I want my ring back, now."
Bonnie reached into her pocket and handed Emma the remains of her Phoenix ring, "I'm sorry Emma. It was the only way."
"You almost killed me," Emma whispered before she left the cavern, Damon wasn't too far behind her.
Damon got a call from Stefan to meet him at the cemetery. As they drove, he held onto Emma's hand tightly. Bonnie was quiet in the backseat.
"Jeremy?" Emma sat forward when she saw the young teen standing by his sister, Emma opened the door as soon as Damon stopped and ran for him, she hugged him tightly.
"Hey Em," Jeremy said as he returned her hug, "see Alaric yet?"
Emma smiled and nodded.
Jeremy turned his focus back to his sister, Emma squeezed his hand one last time before walking back to join Stefan, Damon, and Bonnie.
"You need to get rid of Silas's body," Bonnie told the men.
"Well, there's a slight problem, Medusa. Even though you turned him into stone, if he gets one more drop of blood he's back to his old mind tricks," Damon reminded the group.
Stefan nodded in agreement, "All right, so let's do what we should've done to Klaus - let's drop his body in the middle of the ocean."
Bonnie nodded and walked over to Jeremy and Elena.
"I should, ah, make sure Kol's body is somewhere safe until the veil goes back up," Stefan said.
"Stefan wait," Elena called out before she came running up to them.
Stefan smiled at her, "Welcome back."
He turned and left.
"Damon...Emma...I'm sorry that-" Elena started to say something but Damon stopped her by putting a hand up.
"Stop. The most important thing right now is Jeremy, and saying goodbye," Damon pointed out.
Elena nodded and turned back to her brother, pulling him in for another hug.
Emma's phone dinged and she looked at it, "Sam finally got Dean wrangled back to the Grill. He needs my help."
"Go ahead, I'll deal with Silas and meet you there in a bit," Damon pulled Emma in for a quick kiss.
"I need to see Alaric," Emma said quietly.
"I'll bring him with me," Damon promised.
Emma nodded and walked off towards the Grill.
Inside Caroline was sitting at the bar, Emma joined her.
"So that's it, it's over?" Caroline asked.
"I hope so," Emma said, "I just hope Metatron will accept this as us holding up our end of the deal. Silas isn't totally dead, but he is incapacitated and about to be miles deep in the ocean."
Stefan stepped up to the bar next to them, Caroline turned and smiled at him.
"Good, you're here, we need to celebrate," Caroline seemed giddy.
Stefan shook his head and kept his eyes down, "Yeah, I'm not really in the mood to, ah, celebrate."
Caroline scoffed at him, "What's wrong with you? Silas is dead, or whatever, and you're just sitting here like a bump on a log."
There was someone that I thought I would see today, and, ah...I didn't," Stefan shrugged, "that's all."
"Oh," Emma's heart suddenly ached when she realized who Stefan was referring to.
"You better mean me," a voice said behind them.
Emma turned and grinned widely.
"You've got to be kidding me," Stefan said as he turned around slowly.
Lexi stood there with her hands on her hips, a smile played on her lips. Stefan got up and pulled Lexi into him.
Lexi looked at Caroline, "Thanks for keeping an eye on this one for me."
Caroline smiled and left the three to have their moment.
Emma stood up from her stool, "Lex."
"Em," Lexi moved to hug Emma, "I'm sorry I missed your birthday, for the first time ever."
Emma let out a small laugh, "I think you had a good excuse. I hope you're not mad at me."
Lexi shook her head, "Never, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Even if that means Damon freakin' Salvatore."
All three of them laughed together.
"Alexia?" Dean was in shock.
Lexi stood and grabbed Dean into a hug before doing the same with Sam, "You boys were supposed to keep Emma out of trouble. You suck at it."
"She's like a damn magnet. But at least now she's pretty much indestructible," Dean reasoned.
Lexi rolled her eyes and turned back to Stefan. Emma used the opportunity to join Dean and Sam at a nearby table.
"We could have used your help today. What in the hell happened?" Emma looked back and forth between Dean and Sam.
"There is a problem, with the blade..." Sam seemed hesitant.
"There is not a problem," Dean started to argue, "that's not even important right now; What is important is that Cas found Metatron. We are heading out tonight to meet up with him."
Emma sat back, "I'll get my bag and come with you."
"No," Dean said sternly, "you have a graduation tomorrow."
"What's your point?" Emma scoffed.
"You aren't coming Emmy, end of discussion," Dean looked at Emma, challenging her to argue back, "your witch is putting the veil back up soon. Get your good-byes in."
Dean stood up and walked outside without saying anything else to Emma.
Emma turned to Sam, "Care to elaborate on what in the hell is going on with Dean?"
"The blade is getting to him," Sam looked down at Emma, "it's like it's cursed or something. I'll get to the bottom of it."
"Give me an hour to get my bag and I'll meet you at the boarding house," Emma glanced over her shoulder at Lexi, Alaric had joined the two of them.
Sam shook his head, "No, I agree with Dean on this, you need to stay here and see that this ghost mess gets cleaned up. I'll call you as soon as Metatron is dead."
Sam got up and followed in his brother's footsteps.
"Sam!" Emma called after him, she threw her arms in the air and pounded her fist down on the table when she saw that they weren't coming back for her.